by Robert Adams
"Your Grace, the little ship was thoroughly searched, from stern to stern, and the Provencal chapman was not to be found, only his pack and some of his clothing. Yet there was no way that he could have gotten out of that hold."
"What did the Frenchman say, Walid?" asked Bass.
The captain of Revenge shook his turbaned head slowly. "To believe the tale they all tell—and they have been questioned separately, all of them—would mean that a man must temporarily suspend his rationality completely. They aver that they had been immured in that pitch-black hold, listening as the ship was worked above them, for some hour, perhaps. Then, from nowhere and suddenly, a softly glowing casket, wrought of a metal the color of dulled pewter, was there, suspended in empty air beside the chapman. It was rectangular—about six or seven feet long, two or three feet wide, and some cubit or so deep, with a strange design upon its lid and no hinges that anyone could recall seeing."
"But when the chapman fingered that design in a certain way, the lid arose and gaped wide, whereupon the chapman climbed into it, not taking his pack, the lid snapped shut . . . and all at once, the casket was no longer there, it, its strange glow of light, and the Provencal chapman all gone together to who knows where."
"This casket," asked Bass, "it was in the hold all along, not found by those who inventoried the prize's cargo?"
Walid Pasha shook his head. "No, Your Grace, the hold was searched thoroughly prior to putting the crew in it. There was no such casket anywhere in it. Nor had any member of the French crew ever before seen it, they say; it was not loaded aboard with the cargo in the Port of Bordeaux, they all swear. And although they carried this same chapman as passenger to Munster once before, they did not see anything like that casket that time, either."
"Your Grace, it all seems as if some djinn of the tales used to frighten unruly children had borne off the chapman. Nonetheless, gone he assuredly is. And all of those Frenchmen so terrified that they have since willingly served as seamen aboard others of the fleet rather than so much as set foot back upon the deck of that catte. For that reason, if for no other, I must believe that they assuredly saw something very like what they all say they saw, rational or not."
For all that both Walid and Fahrooq had fumbled through its contents, Bass insisted that the chapman's abandoned pack be brought to Sir Ali, Baron Melchoro, Don Diego, and Nugai emptied it and examined each and every item within it, then dismantled the pack itself in search of anything that might have been hidden.
They found mostly small luxury goods—needles and pins of brass, buttons wrought of many and diverse substances from amber to rare woods, perfume-gloves of doeskin, small scissors and smaller tweezers of both brass and steel, laces, points for fastening clothing, gaudy items of gilt-brass jewelry set with paste stones, small cases of flint, steel, and tinder wisps, folding-blade penknives, a quantity of silken thread in vivid colors, two small, narrow bolts of a very high-quality samite (one a rich blue, the other an equally rich saffron), a double handful of buckles of various sizes and materials, a bagful of dried hare's feet with the claws removed, containers of a black substance that Sir Ali identified as fair-quality kohl, a cosmetic for darkening the eyes, about two dozen bone combs and a half-dozen of low-grade ivory, plus ones and twos or threes of a vast quantity of small fripperies, mostly feminine-looking.
However, sewn cunningly into the thickly layered bottom of the pack they found two pounds of flat rectangles of solid gold, each about of an ounce in weight.
"Now who ever heard of a humble chapman owning so much fine gold?" remarked Baron Melchoro. "And is it not a bit odd that he'd be taking such a fortune along on a trip to a backwater place like the so-called Kingdom of Munster?"
But there was no answer to be given him, not then. The gold went, of course, to Bass, as it had been his ship that prized it. The others took any of the remaining items that tickled their fancies, and the rest was dumped, willy-nilly, into a sack and delivered back to Walid Pasha to be disposed of as he wished.
The examination of the papers of the other prize, the fast lugger, disclosed that she was the property of a group Sicilian merchants. Her last port of call had been Dublin, but she had borne no cargo of any description upon her capture, had rather been in ballast. The sailing master and his mates had been quite silent upon this highly suspect lack of a return cargo for the merchant owners. But when well filled with some of the brandy from the hold of the other prize ship, certain humbler members of the Sicilian lugger's crew had waxed more voluble, averring that the ship had indeed borne no cargo in the last three trips, either, only passengers, noble passengers, mostly.
Despite the Sicilian ownership, they said, they usually sailed under either Granadan, Catalonian, or Portuguese ensigns, and their home port of late had been Las Palmas, on the island of Majorca. The voyage preceding this ill-fated one had been concerned with sailing from Majorca to Munster, taking aboard an archbishop, his secretary, guards, and servants, and a Papal knight and his squires, then turning right about and sailing back to Majorca, where their passengers had been put aboard a Genoan warship. On this fatal trip, they had, in Majorca, taken back aboard that self-same Papal knight and his squires (save that he had had one more than when last he had been aboard the lugger) and sailed out to land him on the Liffey River docks in Dublin.
They had been beating back southward for the Pillars of Hercules when the fog bank and the shrewdly aimed cannonball had undone them. Yes, they would all be very happy to serve as seamen aboard the ships of His Grace of Norfolk, for anything was preferable to being sold as slaves in a foreign land, with no hope of ever again seeing their homes and kin; this way they might be able to save their shares of prizes taken, eventually ransom themselves of His Grace, and work their passages back to the Mediterranean.
Upon landing, Sir Ugo d'Orsini discovered that the Ard-Righ was not to be found in either Dublin or the environs of Tara, but rather was just then dwelling with his court in a fortified palace at Lagore, to the south. Glad then that His Eminence d'Este had been most generous, he purchased decent riding horses and pack beasts for him and for his three squires and two servants, hiring on a couple more Irish servants who seemed to know the lay of the land and one of whom also owned a decent command of the archaic Norman French that seemed to be the second language of parts of Irland. Alloyed with generous amounts of Church and Common Latin, as it was. Sir Ugo and all the other Italians in Munster had found the ancient dialect far easier to understand and speak than modern French, far and away more so than the guttural Gaelic or Irish.
Arrived at Lagore, Sir Ugo and his party were received with the ancient and customary welcome of foreign travelers by the Irish High Kings, given stabling for their beasts, and afforded lodging commensurate with their birth and rank. The knight was deeply shocked at the ease with which a private audience was arranged with High King Brian, his bit of golden palm grease, even, being courteously refused. The Roman did not consider such a way of running a royal court normal.
The Ard-Righ had, of course, been described to him by Timoteo di Bolgia in some detail, but Sir Ugo's personal impressions were even more impressive.
Brian VIII was well called the Burly, for he was a great bear of a man, for all that he moved with the grace of a panther. His beard was of the chin only, being cut in the modish Spanish style with one longer point flanked by two shorter ones. The soft-looking mass of wavy hair that fell to just past the antique golden torque that encircled his neck and throat was clearly all his own, and the eyes set back under the bushy brows shone with intelligence.
Where not darkened and dried out by the sun and weather of campaigning and hunting and hawking, his exceptionally hairy body and limbs were of a rosy milk color, with widely scattered freckles. There were widening streaks of gray in his hair, although his beard was still of a rich, dark auburn hue. His thick, corded neck fitted onto thicker shoulders, and his overall appearance was of one mass of muscle, sinew, and big bones. Sir Ugo thought that with but very
few alterations, the body of the Ard-Righ could have passed for that of Timoteo di Bolgia, save that the hips of the monarch were nearly as wide as were his shoulders. The thighs were the flat thighs of a man who had spent overmuch time in a saddle, and the Roman thought that he personally would think several times before he decided to ride against this man with lance or any other weapon, and he silently wondered just how many men this ruler had killed with his own hands and weapons in combat.
"We welcome you to the court, Sir Knight." said Brian in a deep, powerful, yet ear-pleasing voice. The massive man sat in a canopied chair which must have been fashioned for him expressly, for it gave not a creak or a groan as he shifted his not-inconsiderable weight.
Compared to the garish, ill-matched attire usually worn by Tamhas FitzGerald, that of Brian was most conservative, almost somber. Over a sleeved shirt and tight trousers of a dark umber, the monarch wore a jerkin and calf-height boots of saffron-dyed doeskin. About his thick waist, a narrow belt of tooled leather, with a buckle of plain red-gold, gave support to a small purse that matched the belt, a triple scabbard of antler-hilted eating utensils, and a reasonably ornate dress dagger.
"You are, or at least were, one of the Dux di Bolgia's lieutenants, are you not, Sir Ugo?" said the monarch, in bland tones. At Ugo's affirmative answer, he asked, "Then how is it that you sail into Dublin-port on a lugger from Majorca? That lugger is said to have the cut of a smuggler or pirate and to own a whole chestful of assorted ensigns and merchant-house flags, far more than any honest mariner would have need to carry along."
"Your Majesty," replied Sir Ugo cautiously, "my travel arrangements were made by . . . others, not by me or mine. Yes, I noted that the ensigns were different at different times, Majesty, but I attributed this to the most unsettled times just now. Indeed, on my voyage to Sicily, the Genoan galleass on which Archbishop di Rezzi and I were traveling was attacked by three Moorish feluccas and was compelled by their ferocity to sink two of them."
Brian leaned forward, clearly interested. "You took part in this engagement, then, Sir Ugo? No, don't bother to answer; of course you did—you clearly are a man of mettle, an old-fashioned gentleman."
"Tell me, are you by chance a relation of the great and renowned philosopher Placido Pietro d'Orsini?"
Ugo nodded his head once. "Yes, your Majesty, Placido Pietro d'Orsini was my great-great-uncle. You have perhaps read of his works, Majesty?"
"My library holds all four of them, Sir Ugo; two were left to me as the behest of an old and most dear friend, one whose admiration of your eminent relative was unending, and the other two I acquired over the years. Their costs were staggering, but such works still are cheap at any price. Fra Placido Pietro was a brilliant man and would have made for us all far better a Pope than some recent ones of whom I can think."
"I sincerely thank Your Majesty," said Ugo, with obvious feeling. "We of the family had always believed just so, but it is indeed good to hear such sentiments from so renowned a monarch as Your Majesty. Nor can I but agree with Your Majesty that the last two or three Popes have been disasters in all imaginable ways."
A smile flitted across Brian's face, not just the lips, but the eyes as well. "You deliver your flattery as smoothly as any courtier, Sir Ugo; my congratulations on your expertise. But I still know that this particular renowned monarch is most likely regarded by the few Italians who have even ever heard of him as either a furs-clad, near-pagan barbarian or as an overly pretentious country bumpkin of a ruler of a pocket-sized kingdom of other country bumpkins. And, you know, quite possibly they are of more of a rightness than they think."
"But for all our wars and clan or personal feuds, here in my Eireann still are our people better off than those of you poor souls who live and die under the immoral misrule of this last batch of Popes and their criminal cronies. Within the last thirty-odd years, Rome—both ecclesiastic and civil—is become a true kakocracy, ruled interminably by those least worthy and least capable of ruling."
"But enough of idle discussion, for now. You spoke to my chamberlain of a sealed document you were bearing to me from someone of exalted rank in Sicily. Where is this document, Sir Ugo?"
Brian examined the outer seals meticulously, at one point using a magnifying lens from out his belt purse. Satisfied at last that they not only were authentic but had not been tampered with, he broke them with his thumbnails rather than the more usual letter knife, unfolded the sheets of fine vellum, and read. Twice during that reading he started as if pricked by a point; once he grunted noncommittally; on another occasion he exclaimed, "Hah! Is it then so?"
Finished, the Ard-Righ gave a short jerk to the bell pull of braided velvet at his side and, to the brace of guardsmen who popped through the doors, said, "Have a table brought, and an armchair for our guest. Tell the steward I'll be having a ewer of that pale French wine and two goblets. The bouchal here and Brian have things to talk on, and talking is dry work."
When once more they were alone in the room, the doors shut, the gilded goblets filled with the straw-colored French wine, Brian tapped a fingernail on the refolded letter before him.
"Have you read this, Sir Ugo? No, never mind, those seals were original and entire, by my axe, I'd swear it. And you are a man of honor, I believe. But this Cardinal d'Este, did he not perhaps discuss these matters with you?"
Again, Sir Ugo nodded once. "Yes, Your Majesty, His Eminence did discuss with me certain aspects of the letter he then intended to write for me to deliver."
"His Eminence really means this, then?" demanded Brian. "He is willing to help me to unite all of Ireland under my rule? But Sir Ugo, this is not like Rome, or Constantinople either, for that matter. Rome's traditional way has been to prevent or at least try to prevent the formation or expansion of any large, powerful kingdoms, preferring that all kingdoms remain small, weak, always in or on the verge of a state of war with neighbors and thus always in need of priest's powder, thus further enriching the Church. And also, it has come into my mind on more than one occasion, small, weak states are always far more vulnerable to pressures exerted by Rome than are or would be larger and more powerful states. So why this abrupt and radical change?"
Ugo spoke more slowly than was his usual wont, choosing his words and phrases carefully, wishing that he and the high king might converse in his native and more precise and descriptive tongue, rather than in a four-century-old dialect of French.
"Majesty, prior to the demise of His Holiness Pope Abdul, Rome and her environs were become a patchwork of armed camps. With him now deceased, the city is become a very battlefield, while warbands and hired condottas march over and fight each other on her rich fiefs, when not storming or laying siege to the walled towns or castles of the lay nobility."
"It is mostly a matter of the Moorish and Spanish factions against the two factions that represent the hopes and aspirations of Western and Northern Europe, although, of course, a number of private scores are being settled as well. Early on in this bloodbath, the Moors conducted themselves like an invading army, so now they have no friends or allies in all of Italy and have instead brought in condottas from Afriqah, Spain, and even from Macedonia and Croatia, barbarians no whit less savage than any horde of Kalmyks or Tatars. Such warfare as now rages the length and the breadth of Italy has not been seen since the end of the Roman Empire, twelve centuries ago."
"But still is there hope, Majesty. The Kingdom of Napoli, the Republic of Venezia, the city-states of Genoa, Ravenna, Lucca, and some others, these all have fought the Moors and Spaniards and their foreign hirelings to a standstill, hurt the invaders so badly that they and their allies or client states are being strictly avoided. By mutual agreement by all factions, actual battle has moved out of the city of Rome, although assassinations still are rife there. Why, the holy Giosue di Rezzi, formerly Archbishop of Munster, was so slain by the Moors just before he was about to be elevated to the College of Cardinals."
"But as I say, Majesty, there still is hope. Can a compromi
se of some nature be reached, or can the foreigners be driven out of Italy or extirpated, then will emerge, God willing, a new and far better Rome, like a phoenix arising from out its ashes. Having seen, nay, rather experienced, just what atrocious enormities these Moors and their Spanish abettors be capable of, there can be little doubt but that the other European factions and the sub-factions will decide that only in unity is there either strength or safety and join with the Italian Faction to pull the teeth of both the Moors and the Spanish."
"In the event of a compromise, the most likely replacement for Abdul will be Cardinal Siqil, a Sicilian Moor, but for all of that, a man who shares many of the beliefs of the Italian Faction and deeply distrusts all Spaniards and not a few of the Afriqans. In the event, however, of a clear military victory or an alliance of Europeans, the three most likely candidates will be Cardinals Sicola and d'Este, both of the Italian Faction, or Cardinal Ermannus, Archbishop of Bavaria. As for this last, Cardinal d'Este has corresponded with him at some length and states that His Eminence of Bavaria holds beliefs that very closely parallel those of the Italian Faction."
"Majesty, no matter which of those four attain to the mantle of St. Peter, then will all of the world see a great and clean and cleansing wind sweep through Rome, sweeping away the greed and malice, the pride and the sloth, that have characterized the leaders of our faith for far too long."
"His Eminence d'Este says that the natural growth of states has been unnaturally stifled for far too long a time, that the time is upon Rome to remove the sacking covering the beds, lest civilization and faith both be smothered and die."
For a very long moment after he had fallen silent King Brian just sat and regarded the young Roman knight. Then he nodded and said, "This d'Este sounds to be what Rome, what the Church, and what the faithful have needed for many and many's the long year. He also has demonstrated a rare ability to choose men. Sir Ugo d'Orsini, you will go very far, I trow, very far indeed. You are both eloquent and winning, even when speaking a language not your own."