But this man would have been hard not to stare at. In contrast to the pirates, generally shaped like barrels, he was tall and slender. They were dressed in a motley collection of colours, he in soberest black. Their faces were as rounded as their bellies, his thin and long. What separated them most, though, was the colouring. The pirates to a man had the black hair and burned complexions of their race and trade. Their prisoner was so white he looked as if he had never seen the sun, but had spent his life underground, in places such as this. A pallor only emphasised by the long, curly red hair that fringed his face in a halo of flame.
In only one way was the condemned man akin to his captors – he was utterly, sprawlingly drunk.
Beneath his mask, Gregoras licked his lips. He could have used a draught himself. But vying for the barrel that the newcomers were even now tipping on its side, seeking dregs, would have drawn attention he would prefer to avoid.
It was hopeless. And he could sense that the bloody climax was approaching. The flames beneath the cauldron were lapping violently up its sides, steam was escaping from cracked seals, forming on the ceiling and running in sudden spurts onto men who yelped, then leaned closer. While the roundest, sweatiest pirate there had just taken his hand from the back of the prisoner’s head and was now fumbling beneath his robes.
Hopeless. Gregoras turned to go. He had no desire to witness life’s sudden end. He’d seen it enough, from very close at hand.
Then the prisoner spoke – and the language halted him. He had spent half a year shackled on a slave galley’s bench with nothing to do but row, try not to die … and learn the tongue of the slave shackled next to him.
The words were spoken in English. And they turned Gregoras back into the room, with a little hope.
The words were: ‘Come on then, ye bastard. At least I’ll have some company at the gates of hell.’
With liquor, it was always a puzzling transition for John Grant. One moment he was happily laughing at the situation – in this case, the absurdity of him, a lad from Strathspey, dying in some cellar God-knows-where, at the hands of pirates, Christ on a carthorse, at the behest of the Turk, may his liver boil, for knowledge he was sure he no longer possessed. The next he was angry. No, not merely angry: red-eyed furious. He had it from his father. One moment the mellowest of drunks, the next, striking out at any he could reach for reasons he didn’t explain.
Well, John Grant had his reasons. These fish-fuckers were going to kill him. He had little fear of dying and few reasons to linger longer in this world. He’d given up all he loved when he’d taken the exile’s road. He had found nothing worth living for upon it. But that didn’t mean he wished his death to serve this sea scum’s purposes. And after he’d made them the finest aqua vitae seen in this desert of decent al-kohl?
Ingratitude, that was it. Ingratitude had always made him mad. Like the time he was expelled from the university in St Andrews just because he blew up a very small barn. Had he not been close to a major chemical revelation? And when he returned to his glen to share his discoveries with his family, his clan, they rejected him. Well, he’d show them too.
There was a toast they gave at home and John Grant spoke it as he slowly unfolded himself from behind the table. It was usually pledged to someone else, but Grant decided to give it to himself. ‘May I be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows I’m dead,’ he whispered in Gaelic.
Stanko had found what he’d sought in his robes and produced it now – one of the largest and dirtiest knives Grant had ever seen. ‘What do you say, German?’ he said, his piggy eyes narrowing as he tried to focus on the man rising before him.
John Grant looked down. ‘This,’ he replied, in Croat this time, pulling a small stoppered vial from his belt. ‘And for the last bloody time, I’m Scots, you pig’s arse.’ Flicking the plug off, he lifted a seal from the still, squinted against the sudden gush of steam that exploded out, and tipped the contents of the vial in.
Gregoras was already moving. He had been in his uncle’s cellar once when a mistake had been made. Something added in incorrect proportions. The results had been devastating.
He heard the whine of the still, saw froth bubbling from its seals. Stanko saw him coming. ‘Who are you?’ he said, starting to rise, turning to his men. ‘Who’s this cunt?’
Gregoras grabbed an edge of the table. It was not huge, but it was solid oak and he had to bend to tip it over onto its side. Then he jumped over it and yanked the red-haired man over it too.
There was a moment of silence. Silent men anyway, for the equipment was still frothing and emitting a low, almost animal groan. Until Stanko leaned over the table and stared blearily down. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
Gregoras peered up. He couldn’t think of anything to say. And then he didn’t have to, because the room exploded.
The force of it drove the table back, tipping it against them. Men screamed, some in terror, some in instant agony, as pieces of metal and glass drove into flesh. There had been a few lamps, but all of these were blown out save one that hung from a hook on the ceiling. It wasn’t dislodged but swung violently from side to side, shafts of light piercing the acrid smoke that almost instantly filled the room. Those who weren’t screaming were coughing.
Someone must have got the single door open, because there was a sudden rush of air, the smoke sucked away. Gregoras shook the cloak, dislodging the debris that had accumulated. His face and the Scot’s were about a hand’s breadth apart.
‘And who, by Christ, are you?’ John Grant asked, in Croat.
There was no time to reply before another voice interrupted. ‘That was my question.’
Stanko was looking down at them again, the same bemused expression as before in the too-close-together eyes. Only one thing was different, Gregoras noticed. The pirate chief now had a large shard of glass sticking through his neck. He seemed to notice it too, the moment Gregoras did. He squinted at what protruded just below his chin, reached fingers up to explore. When he touched one jagged end, his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell away from their view.
Gregoras was up on the instant, dragging the Scot to standing, assessing the room. Those who were not badly wounded or dead were dazed, coughing against the lingering smoke, staring wide-eyed before them. ‘Come, and quickly,’ he said, and tugged the other man around the table and over the writhing pirate chief.
‘A moment.’ John Grant dipped down and snatched up a satchel that had spilled to the floor. He straightened. ‘Guud. Now, where are we going?’ Grant was staring amiably at the havoc they were stepping through. His ears were still ringing with the explosion, which had also driven out his previous fury. A man was leading him somewhere. Speaking English of all languages. He thought it unlikely that a demon guiding him to hell would be speaking English. Or perhaps the words of his last toast were being honoured: the devil didn’t know he was dead yet, with so many more obvious sinners to deal with.
No one stirred to stop them as they crossed the cellar floor. It was only when they reached the foot of the stairs that a voice came out with more than moans. ‘Stop them,’ Stanko said, lifting himself off the floor.
He was used to being obeyed, and swiftly. Stunned though they were, those who were still alive in the cellar rose to do so. ‘Go,’ Gregoras yelled, pushing the other man hard, drawing a small dagger at the same time. As the Scot stumbled up the stairs, the first pirate lunged at Gregoras. Ducking, he jabbed up, putting the blade swiftly, shallowly into the flesh just beneath his attacker’s chin. The man collapsed in the doorway with a cry. It was not a mortal wound, but he had lost blades in men when he had struck too deep and he had a feeling he would need all the weapons he had in what lay ahead. Besides, a blood-gushing pirate in the entranceway might slow the pursuit a little.
He turned to the stairs. The Scot was sprawled across them. ‘Ma legs dinna seem to want to work,’ he giggled. Bending, Gregoras got his arms around the other man’s chest and heaved him to his feet. Grant was all he
ight and little weight but he was still not easy to drag up stairs. Gaining level ground, Gregoras ran the two of them down a small corridor, shoved Grant hard against the front door, reached round him to the handle, turned it and threw the Scot into the street, where he fell straight down, curled himself up and sighed.
Gregoras looked both ways. No one seemed yet to have reacted to the explosion – though from behind him he could hear Stanko roaring, the man he’d knifed screaming and feet crashing onto the stairs.
He bent to the prone man. ‘Listen,’ he hissed. ‘If those men catch us, they’ll kill us both. I have no intention of dying in this fleapit town. So either you get up and run, or I’ll let them spill your guts into the gutter.’
John Grant rolled onto his back. ‘Beautifully phrased, my friend. For did not the great Homer say …’ He belched extravagantly, assumed a pose to declaim.
‘Fuck Homer,’ Gregoras shouted. ‘Run!’
John Grant ran. The first few steps were to one side, the next to the other. But with Gregoras seizing an arm, the two of them began to make progress up the narrow, wet, steeply ascending street. They’d gone twenty paces before the first pirate emerged, and bellowed, ‘There! They are—’
His last word was cut off. Something took him in the back, throwing him forward. The two men ran on.
Leilah wasn’t sure why she shot. Instinct, she supposed. She had heard the faint crump of an explosion, then seen Gregoras bursting onto the street, accompanied by another. Relief at seeing him was mixed with puzzlement – she’d watched him go in from her vantage in the abandoned house. But who was that with him? Then the two had begun running, a pursuer had emerged and she had shot. It was only when the man fell that she looked again at the fleeing men – and caught a glimpse of this other as he passed beneath a lamp above some better-off-citizen’s door. His hair was red. A brighter red than she had seen even sported by the whores of Aleppo. It was not a red you saw often in the Adriatic; it belonged more to northern races than the darker locals.
And then she realised who he must be. When she’d rapidly left the tavern Gregoras had entered the previous night, she’d guessed he’d been there for the same purpose as she. Now they were bound to each other, did it matter which of them got the Turk’s reward? But the swaying, fleeing figures told her different – he was there to rescue the German.
She’d wasted her bolt. And her quarry had turned a corner. Snatching up bag and crossbow, she ran down the stairs and opened the door onto the ulica just as more pirates ran out of the house. A large man was shouting louder than the others, one hand clutching a long, curved sword, the other clamped to his neck.
She counted three, and followed.
It was not easy manoeuvring a drunk over slick cobbles. Shouts behind pushed Gregoras on, and the two men soon stumbled into the main square. It was at the top of the hill, the town built below and around it. Over the square loomed the bulk of the cathedral, St Marka, and Gregoras ran into its shadows, pausing for breath and thought.
Streets ran off down the hill from the square on both sides. In his brief stay there he had learned that the former lords of the island, the Venetians, had taken advantage of its siting to construct a unique system of air flow. For when the harsh winter bura blew, it could chill the stone balls of a statue. So the streets on the side of the town that faced it were curved to minimise the wind’s chilling effect. But the other side of the island would receive the mistral. In high summer heat, that wind could cool. So the ulicas that faced it were made straight to air the town.
If he ran down one street, the way curved. Far harder to shoot the bows that many of the pirates would carry. If they ran down the other … they would be easy targets all the way to the water.
But as he stood in the shadow of the cathedral, pursuers’ voices getting ever closer, Gregoras could not remember whether the curved ones were to the left or the right. Nearing shouts meant he had to choose. And the decision could cost his life.
He poked the man beside him, and got a snore in reply. Putting one hand over the man’s mouth, he jabbed harder with the other. ‘Listen, Englishman,’ he whispered in that tongue, as Grant’s eyes opened, ‘we have to run now, and run fast, or we die. If you wish to do that, you can stay here till they find you. But I am going.’
‘And I’m coming with ye.’ John Grant had only slept for one minute. But he’d woken with an awful pounding in his head – and the equally vivid certainty that, despite the pain, he wanted to live. ‘By the by, I’m not bloody English, all right?’
The two men got into a crouch. Yelling pirates burst into the square. Gregoras seized an arm and moved. Right.
Wrong. As soon as he entered the ulica he knew it. He could see lights in the distance – ship lamps on water. The alley ran straight to it.
Shouts came from behind them. ‘There!’ they heard Stanko cry. ‘A gold hyperpyron for each of their heads!’
‘Run,’ Gregoras yelled.
The two men ran. Almost immediately something glanced off the left wall and skittered down the street. ‘Arrows. Weave!’ Gregoras commanded, darting to the side.
‘What, you mean like this?’ John Grant muttered. He always woke up sarcastic after too much aqua vitae. Wet cobbles, slickened from an overflowing gutter, and smooth leather boot soles took care of his swerving. As it was, he had to fight to keep upright and moving, his long body jerking up and down for balance, more sliding than running, like a boy on ice.
He fell and Gregoras, grabbing for him, went down too. Arrows flew overhead where they’d been. Judging from the cries behind them, men were tumbling there too.
Behind them all, at the top of the ulica, Leilah halted. She regarded the sliding, slipping men, the pursuers and the pursued, and smiled. Yet she did not dwell on the humour of the spectacle but pulled a bolt from the quiver and placed it in her mouth. Unslinging her hunting bow from her back, she put her foot in the stirrup, bent, breathed deep and with three fingers smoothly drew the string up till it notched. She took the bolt, moistened her lips, drew the feathers over the wetness, evening the flights, then lifted the crossbow and laid the bolt in its groove. A near-full moon gave her light enough to see. And since the bura was blowing on the other side of the island, wind did not affect the straight street. The men’s jerking movements did, the way they blended together and suddenly flew apart. She had to be careful. She did not wish to shoot her man of destiny.
She saw the German fall again, heard the pirates whoop as they ran faster, closer. She believed that Gregoras would survive, because she had seen him in that dream, in her charts. The other, the engineer that Mehmet feared would thwart his conquest, she had no mystical thoughts about. She only knew that to aid that conquest, and all that it would bring her, he must die.
It was in Allah’s hands, as ever. As the men below merged into a mass, then separated out again, she breathed out on one word – ‘Inshallah’ – and shot.
Gregoras snatched at the German or Englishman or whatever the hell he was, who was falling again, with two of their pursuers less than twenty paces off. Another group of five, including the shouting Stanko, were the same distance behind.
Thinking briefly that he’d had better odds in that other alley in Ragusa, cross-handed he drew his dagger and falchion – the short, heavy-bladed weapon ideal, for the ulica was narrow. The two pirates skittered, slowing, curved swords appearing from beneath folds of cloak. He braced himself, wondering which of them he should take first.
A hand closed over his dagger hand. ‘Gie me one of them,’ John Grant cried. ‘I’ll show ’em, murderin’ bastards.’ As he fumbled for Gregoras’s dagger, he raised his leather satchel high like a shield and cried, ‘Craigelachie.’
‘Let me go.’ Gregoras wrenched free of the other man’s grip, and turned – too late to do more than lift his blade against the one that fell. Steel clashed on steel with a force that sent pain shooting through his arm. The second man arrived a second after the first, his sword about to fall too.
Gregoras threw up his dagger blade square across his head, though he was sure the scimitar would snap it.
The curved blade never fell. Something opened in the assailant’s throat like a second mouth, spewing forth steel. A crossbow bolt, barely hindered by neck gristle, slammed into Grant’s still-raised satchel, knocking him over.
The other man stepped back, giving himself room to swing. Closing, Gregoras punched him with the falchion’s curved finger guard, straight and hard on the nose. The man went down, wrapped in his dying companion. Beyond them, the other pirates had caught up. Yet their eagerness had increased their speed. Trying to stop before their fallen, writhing comrades, the first two lost their feet, slammed onto the ground, slid into what became a mound of bodies. Those behind them, Stanko leading, fared no better.
A flesh wall blocked the alley. It was a chance. ‘Go,’ Gregoras yelled, lifting and turning the stunned Scot, pushing him from stumble to run.
Leilah had just raised the crossbow, loaded again and brought it to sight, when the two figures disappeared round the corner. She lowered the weapon, watched the pile of pirates finally separate, rise, run, leaving the man she’d killed by mistake on the cobbles. She considered pursuing, taking another shot. But Korcula’s citizens were stirring, roused by the mayhem. Doors were opening, voices screaming for the night watch. She would find it hard to explain her armed self, once they discovered she was a she. It was time to vanish.
As the yelling pirates rounded the corner, Leilah aimed into the sky, pulled the trigger. It was a waste of one of her beautifully fashioned bolts, but she couldn’t remove it to shoot; it was too hard on the weapon, all the energy that should have launched the projectile jarring to the stock and bow, while straining the braided rope that bound them together.
As she turned back into the square, filling with the first of the townsfolk, she shrugged. She would have another chance to catch up with this German, if Allah willed it. If not …
A Place Called Armageddon Page 8