Burdens of the Dead

by Mercedes Lackey

  He pointed to a steep bluff above the village. The peninsula was barely three miles wide here. From up there they would probably be able to see all the way to the Hellespont. “And put someone on that hill up there to keep a look-out.”

  The serious-faced young Corfiote-Italian nodded. He knew his skill as a Greek speaker made him valuable, and he also realized that this was a good opportunity to show that value. “I’ll have the men move the cookpots off the fires.”

  “Good idea. And ready a really big signal bonfire to let us know if there are more than a handful of Byzantine soldiery coming.”

  “M’lord. I have Henri, who is good with a trumpet. I’ll have him sound it too.”

  “He makes enough noise with it,” said Benito, wryly. It was true enough. Venetian generals had begun using the brass instruments for maneuvers and Benito had been thinking about it himself. The sound carried well.

  And with that Benito had to leave, leading his scanty supply of tired troops on the seven mile march to Callipolis.

  * * *

  It was already well after noon, when they began the march, and nightfall would come too soon. But they had little choice, just as they had little choice about their route. There were only possible two roads, if the paths involved could be dignified with the term. Of the two, furthermore, one was a great deal shorter than other, which would have involved two miles of cross-country and farmland before it was even reached.

  Reluctantly, Benito decided they had no choice but to take the shorter of the two routes.

  It didn’t take long for his reluctance to be justified. The problem with taking the most obvious route to an wartime objective is that the enemy also has a brain, usually knows how to use it, and can come to the same conclusion. They hadn’t been on the march for more than an hour and a half before they began encountering Byzantine cavalry units.

  Benito knew perfectly well that battle plans seldom survive encounter with the enemy. But this plan, he thought sourly, looked to be coming apart before the first shots were even fired.

  He’d learned a lot about war by now, partly from listening to advice—especially that coming from his grandfather—and partly from his own experience. So, sensibly, he’d had his own scouts ahead of the main force precisely for the purpose of warning him if the enemy approached.

  The problem was that Benito’s “scout unit” was even less qualified for the term than the “road” they were following. The unit should have consisted of light cavalry—and a fairly strong force of cavalry, at that. Strong enough to be able to delay the enemy’s advance while sending couriers to the rear bearing the warning.

  What Benito had instead was simply a squad of half a dozen men—infantrymen, not cavalry—selected for their physical fitness and carrying nothing beyond their personal weapons. Their gear had been divided among their mates in the units from which they’d been selected.

  So, when the scouts encountered the forward units of Byzantine cavalry coming from Calliopolis, they could do nothing more than sound the alarm by blowing their horns—and then racing aside after firing a few (and ineffective) shots. If they’d tried to put up a serious resistance and slow down the oncoming enemy they’d simply have been crushed and run over.

  Still, the horns and the fired shots carried far enough to give Benito a warning.

  There were forty of Enrico Dell’este’s Swiss mercenaries and their long pikes, and Benito deployed them in the road. Had this been a normal battlefield he would have moved his Corfiote irregulars forward of the pike line so they’d have a clear line of fire at the oncoming enemy. The Corfiotes had a mixture of hand-cannon and arquebuses, and a spada da lato each. Such weapons were good for a first hard blow at cavalry, but were slow to reload. Once the firearms were discharged, the men would be slaughtered by the cavalry unless they could find shelter behind the pikemen.

  The road was too rough and narrow for that sort of standard maneuver, though. The arquebusiers would just get tangled up with the pikemen as they tried to retreat through their lines, which would disorganize the entire force and place all of them at the mercy of the Byzantines.

  And Benito thought he had a good alternative. The fields on either side of the road were filled with rows of dead pease drying on their stems—which in turn were twined around and through the lattices that supported them. The lattices consisted of nothing more sturdy than dead branches thrust into the ground, but the end result were fields consisting of what people often called pea brush.

  The enemy could drive their horses through the stuff, but they’d be slowed down and their ranks would get disorganized. That might let his Corfiotes inflict enough casualties on the Byzantines to drive them off.

  If worse came to worse, he could always set fire to the pease fields. He wanted to avoid that if at all possible, though, since it would make his own route impassable for hours. But he might very well have to do it. They were pretty heavily outnumbered

  * * *

  The pike-wall held, forcing most of the Byzantines into the pease fields, which slowed their momentum. The arquebusiers fired into the mass; fired again; and yet again.

  There came a horn call and the Byzantines broke off. The enemy’s commander realized his men had gotten too disorganized—too flustered, also—and wanted to bring order and steadiness back into their ranks. Benito was almost sure he’d order a charge into the pease on one side or the other of the road. If the charge was driven home smartly and forcefully his own forces would have no choice but to retreat onto the other side of the road. They’d probably lose the road itself, after which his own forces would start getting disorganized.

  Still, the battle was far from hopeless. Then then he heard the sound of a trumpet in the rear. Was this another Byzantine force? If so, they’d be caught between two foes and their situation would be desperate.

  But just as dismay became to take hold of the small Venetian band, they heard the sound of the battle hymn of the Knights of the Holy Trinity on the same trumpet. Fear had driven away the tiredness and Benito’s mind was sharp enough to work out what was happening. He’d heard the trumpeter Henri practice that tune.

  “Hurrah!” he yelled. “A rescue! The Knights! The Knights are coming! Hold hard, men!”

  He yelled it in Greek, which might have given his men pause. “Cheer, damn you,” he said quietly to the men on his right.

  They did and, like a ragged volley, the cheering spread. In the distance, the trumpet sounded the brave tune again.

  “Hear that!” yelled another man, again in Greek—which was the first language of a fair number of the Corfiotes anyway.

  “They’re coming!” yelled another.

  “Can’t be more than a mile away!” shouted one the sergeants.

  The Byzantine Cavalrymen—reforming in good order just moments before—began milling. A few milled right back down the road toward Calliopolis.

  Using every last bit of volume he could muster in his lungs, Benito yelled: “Prepare to advance!”

  If anyone among the Byzantine cavalry wondered why he was giving orders in Greek, obviously the thought never crystallized. A single rider advanced towards them…waving a white rag.

  Benito yelled. “If you lay down your weapons, we will protect you. No one will get hurt.” Except possibly the trumpeter, with the amount of wine the boys will pour into him, he thought to himself. Or if the real Knights of the Holy Trinity get to hear of it! That Henri will go far. I really have to look into using trumpets as signals.

  * * *

  Some of the Byzantines fled. But Benito wound up with nearly two hundred prisoners. It was only a little later that he discovered that a vast fleet had been sighted, news had come that the Cap Hellas fortifications had been captured, and the troop had been in the act of retreating from their indefensible and plainly diseased barracks. Running away, in other words, when the fleeing priest from the village told them there was a small force of Venetians ahead of them.

  In the meanwhile Benito sent a man
back on one of the captured horses to find out just what was happening behind them.

  The horse came back with Lieutenant Barassa instead. “I was on the bluff where you told us to station a lookout. I saw the cavalry coming from Calliopolis—I had to run back down to call Henri…And we didn’t have a signal for ‘they’re in front of you.’ So I had him play the Battle Hymn. I…hope I did the right thing, M’lord.”

  “You did indeed…Captain Barassa,” said Benito slapping him on the back. “I’ll see the Council ratifies that promotion. You have earned it several times over with that bit of quick thinking.”

  “Thank you, M’lord. And also we’ve sighted a round ship with the two galliots out in the bay.”

  “They’d have been in time to bury us. Right. Get back there and tell them to move along. You can take two squads of my men—anyone who can ride, to escort these fellows to the village. The city of Calliopolis knows we’re coming now. Let’s see if we can make it look like a lot of us are coming.”

  They set to cutting some of the scrub from a patch of forest land a little further on. Bunches of branches were tied behind the horses, and in a very noisy company to the sound of horns and whatever the men could find to beat on—from shields to pots—they marched toward Calliopolis, with the men from the round ship and the little group of scouts. Even after the rain, the dust they raised was substantial.

  The town came into view soon enough. It was less than five miles from their battle, and, as they came closer there were a fair number of dropped and scattered bundles on the road—people fleeing the town who had heard or seen them coming. They were in reality a pitiful force, but in the dusk that wouldn’t have been obvious to the burgers or the merchants.

  The troops generously picked up the bundles. Fair enough loot, Benito figured. Besides how would he stop the troops from appropriating it? In the town would be a different matter—the last thing he needed was a drunken sack when he had so few men. The reality was there’d be some trouble. That was the nature of war, but, as his grandfather said—who was good at lecturing on these subjects, and because of who he was, worth listening to—more than one city had been lost in the counterattack while the conquerors were in no state to fight back.

  The gates were not open, but white flags flew above them. The emperor Alexis was not going to be pleased when he heard about that. Neither were the townsmen when they discovered that the conquering army was less than half of the size of the town’s supposed defenders. True, they could probably not have stood off a long assault by the fleet, but that would have taken time, and bypassing Calliopolis would have meant leaving a festering trouble spot for the fleet’s return. The Council of Ten and the Doge had decided: the passage to the Black Sea must no longer remain under Byzantine control. That meant taking and holding the Calliopolis peninsula. Having looked at the maps Benito could see the practical possibilities of keeping control of the peninsula. At sea the Venetians were a more potent force than the Byzantines, and already held various islands. This was a matter of holding a narrow strip of land whose garrison could be supplied by sea, well out of reach of the Byzantines and their allies.

  The local governor was plainly a man of nerve, as he came to the gate to greet the invaders. Alone. “I would like to discuss terms for surrender,” he said, with scarce a tremor to his voice.

  Worth keeping on, thought Benito. “We will agree to reasonable terms,” he said, calmly. “Provided there is complete surrender. No violence against ourselves or the fleet. Most of our troops are remaining outside the city. I’ll bring a couple of hundred trusted men to police things. Of course, food and a limited amount of wine must be provided, along with defensible quarters. And the Winged Lion of Venice flies above the city.”

  “Er…how many men?”

  “As many as we see fit,” said Benito, grimly, beginning to revise his initial impression.

  “Just for catering m’lord,” said the man hastily. “There are stocks in the military barracks, and I will order some sheep fetched. But it appears you have a vast host.”

  “We’ll pass on their wine. I will, however, buy wine. Say three casks of Mavodaphne. I have a very good idea of costs,” added Benito, “so tell the taverner that, and that he’ll get to drink a healthy measure in my presence before the troops get any. And we’ll have a few hostages to good behavior.”

  Benito set about organizing a roster of watches and frightening his men out of rapine and obvious looting. Some would still happen, probably. He also let the men know that they’d be doing well out of the town’s revenue for the next year. “So keep it in one piece so it can earn for us. And don’t, whatever you do, drink the wine from the Byzantine barracks unless you want to believe your innards have melted.”

  The first vessels of the fleet, looking as if they were racing and not proceeding in an orderly and dignified manner, came into sight in the twilight. Benito had a bonfire lit in front of the flagpole on the harbor-wall tower, so that the Winged Lion of St. Mark and, just above it, the red cross of Genoa, and just below, the flag of the Kingdom of Aragon could be seen. That might make Borana a little less upset, Benito hoped.

  He could hope for the rain-showers to turn into gold flakes too.

  * * *

  By nightfall the next day the fleet—less those who had stayed to hold the Callipolis peninsula—had sailed out into the Propontis, despite complaints from Admiral Borana about how dangerous it was to sail at night. They had a strong following wind, moonlight, and Mer-people to keep them well clear of any shoals or islands.

  Benito wondered if Captain Di Tharra from Sardinia was making pre-dawn visits to the bow, alone. He’d bet on it being likely.

  Chapter 30

  Venice

  Venice, the Serenissima, settled toward winter, with high tides and strong winds and some flooding. A slowly-sinking city built on lagoon mud and with water-streets was prone to problems at this time of year. So were her people. This was when cold kept the smell down and mixed with the damp to bring out the chest complaints instead. It became the city of fogs and coughs, and Marco found himself very busy treating the latter and wishing the fogs would go away. Also, for the first time, he was suddenly very worried about transporting some of these illnesses from the poor to the Casa Montescue, and his brother’s daughter. Kat—well, he had never worried about Kat, she was an adult, had grown up on the canals, and was as healthy as he. But children were so fragile. He’d seen for himself how a cough became a fever, and the fever raged through the little bodies and carried them off. Benito and Maria trusted him, and he loved the child. He would not risk her.

  So as soon as he came through the door, even though he knew Francisco was waiting, he went through the careful ritual of washing and changing his garments that Francisco had said to be the normal way with physicians among the Barbary, where he’d apparently been enslaved and begun learning most of his medical skills. The garments themselves went off to be fumigated with pungent herbs. The origins of the ritual might be religious, but Marco was willing to take a chance on pleasing some unknown god if it would keep Alessia safe.

  His Arabic teacher was waiting in the library, with what he called life’s essentials: a mug of beer and a book. There was also a fire burning in the grate, and the place was warm—which after the damp foggy chill outside Marco found welcome. He doubted that Francisco had asked for the fire himself. He’d concluded after visiting Francisco’s chambers that if the man had beer and a book he wouldn’t notice the temperature. This must have been Kat’s doing, bless her. He had to clear his throat before Francisco even noticed he’d come in.

  His tutor looked up with no sign of annoyance that he’d been kept waiting. “Ah M’Lord. How does the reading progress?”

  Marco sighed and sat down on another comfortable chair and put his feet up to the fire. “Slowly. This part of that Sina treatise appears to be entirely composed of lists—most of which are items I have no translations for.”

  “It’s essential that you build
up your vocabulary somehow,” said Francisco, smiling crookedly, “Or you’ll never cope with the Qanun. He was methodical, you have to grant that.”

  Marco nodded. “Oh yes. It’s all quite logical. And fascinating. I am still learning a great deal about new treatments, and some of the ideas make sense.”

  “And some don’t. Still, it’s better than a lot of what passes for medicine in the Empire.”

  The door burst open and, with a shriek of delight, a small toddler hurtled in and flung herself on Marco Valdosta.

  Marissa came hurrying after. “I’m sorry M’Lord. I don’t know how she knew you were here.”

  Marco cuddled her; she giggled. Why did little children always smell so good? The clean ones, anyway. “She always does, somehow. I’ll come and read to you later, ‘Lessi. Go with Marissa.”

  She smiled and clung to him. “Come too.”

  “Later, my love. Just now, Uncle Marco has schoolwork to do.” Marco kissed the curls and handed her back to Marissa. Alessi made a token protest as she was carried out, but no more than that. “Now, let me just find those notes I made.”

  But this was not going to be the peaceful, studious afternoon he had wished. Running footsteps in the hall heralded another interruption, and the door burst open a second time. “M’Lord!” the footman in the door way said urgently. “M’Lord, the Doge is calling for you. He wants you immediately.”

  Marco sighed. “Francisco. Another day. Perhaps Tuesday?”

  “Tuesday is fine M’Lord Valdosta.”

  “The Schiopettieri are waiting with a gondola M’Lord,” said the footman. “The Capitano said it was very urgent. And to bring your medical things.”

  “I’d better run then. Goodbye, Francisco. Please finish your beer!”

  * * *

  He left at a run. Francisco drained his beer and stood up. So…someone important, possibly even the Doge himself, needed medical attention. Well, they were wise to call young Marco. That information must be sent along.