"Maria?"
"Thank God!" He felt the pressure of her hand on his. "Umberto, don't you dare die on me."
"Try . . ." Things slipped away again.
* * *
It was some hours later that he awoke enough to make sense of his surroundings. He was in the hospital tended by the monks of Saint John, up on the hill.
"Did we beat them off?" he asked, wishing his head would stop spinning. "Alberto . . ."
"We did. We lost nearly fifty people, though. Alberto is fine, other than a broken finger. You two raised the alarm—because you slept at home. I am going to keep you there," said Maria, fiercely.
* * *
The seven surviving Libri d'Oro plotters attempted to look defiant when they were hauled before the captain-general and the governor. Only Flavio Dentico really succeeded.
"Kill us, then. You will get nothing out of us!"
The captain-general scowled. "We have torturers of sufficient skill to get the entire story out of you."
The old governor cleared his throat and turned to Eberhard of Brunswick. "Perhaps you would like to explain to them?"
The Ritter nodded. "Your families and the families of the dead we have identified have been taken into custody. You may be fools and decide to wait for torture. But if you wish to save your families further pain . . . well, we need to know just who the spy is. Who in here has contact outside? This plot was orchestrated. I'm afraid we need to know this. And I'm afraid you will talk."
There was something really terrifying about the urbane, calm way he said it.
"What are you going to do with our families?" asked one of the younger men. It was plain that this effect of their actions had not been considered.
"They're in the dungeons below the fortress."
"They knew nothing of this!"
Eberhard raised his eyebrows. "Then suppose you tell us who did know of your treason. Singly, so we can check your stories against each other. At the moment the real reason for holding your families is to keep them alive. The people out there know who betrayed them. They're baying for Libri d'Oro blood right now."
* * *
Piece by piece the details of the plot appeared. A scant hour later troops were scouring the Citadel for Petros Nachelli, the glib, greasy former rent collector.
They found him, and the two cousins who served him as enforcers. But they weren't going to talk, not even under torture. Not without necromancy.
* * *
Captain Querini was tied to the chair. Commander Leopoldo was still half dressed, his face bloody, his tunic-jacket torn. He'd led the assault that had retaken the tower that held the portcullis levers, and he was furious about the loss of some of his finest men. He held the roster up to the cavalry captain's face and shook it furiously.
"You testa di cazzo! If it wasn't for a couple of scuolo sleep-at-homes who didn't come in to find they weren't on duty, we'd have lost the Citadel. As it is, I lost twenty-three men because of this!" He shook the piece of paper again. "You—!"
The captain gave a low moan. "I never knew. I was in my bed! I wouldn't have been in my bed if I known. I never meant any harm. . . . They tricked me. They lied to me. It was Dentico."
"You'll still hang."
* * *
Maria hadn't realized just how much the fireboat project had come to mean to Umberto until she'd sat with him the day after he'd been shot. Umberto was not a great communicator. His job and his home life—except when things were really boiling over and he would tell her—were two separate worlds. She'd followed progress in the yard more by snippets than anything else.
Now, weak and slipping into fever, he talked of little else but this. Maria passed an anxious day and an anxious, sleepless night listening to it. He was much the same the next day. She still dared not leave. Stella had come up to take Alessia for a few hours. Old Mrs. Grisini's Corfiote girl had come up with some food. A group of the Corfiote laborers' wives came with a small pot of sour cherry spoon-sweets. They were quiet—as befitted a hospital with a sick man—but each came and embraced her.
Maria sat there, biting her lip. She had never been hugged by this many people. They plainly thought he was going to die. The small pot of spoon-sweets sat there on the table beside her. She stared at it, eyes blurred with tears. She knew just how little they had, what sort of a sacrifice this was. She'd married Umberto to give Alessia a father. Now . . . she was going to lose him, too. For days he clung there, growing paler, growing weaker. Maria prayed. She prayed as she'd never ever prayed for herself.
It was late evening four days later, with Umberto tossing and mumbling, when two of the Corfiote women came in to the hospital. "You must come with us, Maria."
"I can't. I can't leave Umberto."
"If you don't, you will leave him at the graveside," said one of the women, brutally. "We have heard from Anastasia—the girl who works for Mrs. Grisini—that your house has been cursed."
"But what about Alessia?"
"The priestess said to bring her."
It was only when she got outside and well down the hill, that she came to realize that it was well after sundown. She was, she realized, dazed with exhaustion. "What about the curfew?"
The older of the two women shrugged. "We know where they patrol. And there are ways to pass. But it is difficult."
Maria was too tired to try to make sense of it all. She followed them to the cliff with the tall Italian poplar beside it. Ascended the ladder. Walked the winding cave trail into the inner chamber with its two altars, one white, one black. Looked at the cracked dry rock-cut pool where the water from the tiny waterfall now fell into a clay bowl drifted with flower-petals. At the huge, eminently female statue, terrible in its primitive beauty. Looked at the priestess in her simple white robe, with her long white hair in great waves around her. Looked into the compassionate eyes of . . .
Renate De Belmondo, the wife of the Podesta.
* * *
"Welcome, Daughter. The Peace of the Mother, the great Goddess be with you."
And the strange thing was that she'd felt just that. The hurt, the anger, the sadness had all receded, just as in her distant childhood memories, they had on those rare occasions when she'd turned to her own mother's arms.
The rest of the ritual, the soft refrains had not meant much to her. Except the priestess—who was also Renate De Belmondo in another life—had done her best with curse-exorcism.
"It may be best if you could move house, dear. There is lingering evil around you. Someone hates you very much, enough to spend a great deal of time cursing you. She is no witch, I think—but there is a great deal of magic here, and magic—"
She shrugged. "It is a tool. It often comes to the hand of those who do not know how to use it, yet succeed in doing something with it even in their ignorance."
Maria sighed. "Right now I'm living up at the hospital anyway. If Umberto lives . . . well, I'll try. I don't know how possible it will be."
"For your sake, your husband's sake, and for the sake of that lovely daughter of yours, you should."
When they returned to the small building on the north slope that was the monks' hospital, Maria fearfully hastened to Umberto's side.
He was still.
Maria felt as if her heart would stop. She put a trembling hand to his forehead. When she'd left it had been fire-hot.
It was cool.
Not deathly cold. Just . . . unfevered.
Maria didn't know how to thank the Mother. But she did it with all her heart anyway.
* * *
Umberto might have turned the corner, but to start him climbing the steep stair required a sickbed visit from Alberto, with his index finger strapped.
"How do you use a hammer with that?" asked Umberto weakly.
"Um. Haven't much, lately."
"What about the fireboats?"
"Old Grisini had another relapse and he's gone home. And well, Balfo, he's senior master after you, he said he couldn't see the sense of it. We
'd never use them."
"What?" Umberto was struggling to sit. "I need to get down there! I'll tear his ears off, I'll—"
"You'll lie down!" said Maria crossly. "I'll tear any ears that need tearing."
"Maria, I've got to get down there! If we can deal with the enemy's fleet while they over-winter here . . . Most of them will have to be here, in the bay of Corfu."
"As soon as you are well enough to even sit on your own, I'll bring some of the lads up from the Little Arsenal to carry you down," promised Alberto. "Then we can carry you home."
Two days later they carried him down the hill. It started off with three big journeymen and Alberto, simply picking up the bed and carrying it out of the door. As they came out of the hospital, Maria realized that nearly every one of the Arsenalotti were there, from the masters to the Corfiote labor. And they weren't content to just carry Umberto. He had to travel shoulder high. Across the channel, across the Spianada, the Hungarians must have wondered just what the besieged had to cheer about.
Umberto didn't even have to tear ears. The issue was simply never raised and the Little Arsenal went back to hammering, sawing and working. In theory, Umberto was in charge of it. In practice he was still too weak and too tired. Maria was his eyes and ears, relaying orders, dealing with problems. The scuolo, as conservative as could be, would never have just taken orders from a woman. But Umberto's orders, relayed and made a lot more caustic by his wife—a different matter.
The only trouble was that Maria was not always inclined to just give Umberto's orders. Nor after the first few times did she say "Master Verrier says." She just told anyone from master to laborer to do it. And as they didn't know whether it came from Umberto or not, the Arsenalotti did it. Before two weeks were up, taking orders from Maria was so normal no one even thought about it. She was good at giving them.
For those first two weeks, Maria had had them knock up a space in one of the work sheds for Umberto. He was certainly not going to get home—or back—without carrying, and he was determined to be at the Little Arsenal. Maria did a trip to fetch Goat and the hens. One hen had disappeared, but the goat found more to eat in the shipyard than she had in Maria's own yard or than Maria had been able to scavenge for her.
PART X
September, 1539 a.d.
Chapter 74
The three light galleys Venice was sending to the aid of Corfu left without fanfare or fuss or any of the normal send-off. They left directly from the Arsenal sometime after midnight, with extremely select crews, a large supply of weaponry—and gold. Some fifteen thousand ducats worth, which would have made the small vessels a tempting target in any pirate's book. Led by the merfolk, the three ships slipped along the Dalmatian coast by night, pulling up, stepping masts and hiding on small islands by day. They laid up for two days with the mosquitoes in a swampy river mouth just north of the bay of Vlores, waiting for the merfolk to return with news of a safe route. The clouds rolled in, along with the triton, eventually.
"The water is clear of ships on this course," said Androcles, "because it's raining fit to raise the ocean level. You could sail within thirty yards of one of the carracks without anyone being the wiser. The galliots are all pulled up on the beaches. You humans don't seem to like getting wet."
They rowed on through worsening seas and squalls of rain. The light galleys had no real shelter for the rowers, and Benito found himself shivering. "Well, at least in this we should be able to land on the island during daylight," said Benito to the triton, who was pacing the vessel in the rolling gray sea.
Androcles shook his head. "No. The rain stops short of Corfu. Any lookout will see you. You'll have to wait for nightfall." He looked up at Benito and chuckled. "The seas are getting heavier. Looks as if you aren't wet enough already, you might just join us soon."
Never was Benito so glad to see landfall as in the lee of that unnamed cape. The Venetian relief force was cold, wet, and bedraggled.
And on Corfu—undetected.
* * *
The hundred and fifty men who had landed there were handpicked as good seamen, with some knowledge of Greek—easy enough, as many Venetians spent time in the Greek possessions. They were all reasonably skilled horsemen, and were all combat veterans. What they weren't . . . was too sure where they were, where the enemy was, and just where they should go. Benito blessed the fact that at least it wasn't raining here.
He went down to the water's edge to bid farewell to the merpeople. Only Androcles had come inshore. "My thanks. We're in your debt."
Androcles grinned, his teeth pearly in the moonlight. "We'll keep it in mind." He looked at the three galleys. "What do you do with the ships now?"
Benito scowled. "I busted my ass building them and now we'll scupper them, rather than let the Byzantines have them."
Androcles shrugged. "Why not put them in the sea caves? There are some along the edge of the cape. You can only get in dry at low tide. If you take the masts down you should fit them. You will have to swim out of the cave, though."
Benito sighed. "I'm just about dry."
Most of the gear was off-loaded and skeleton crews of strong swimmers set out for the caves. They nudged their way forward into the darkness of the sea-hollowed limestone. "This is where we leave you," said Androcles. "Corcyra is another's territory, and this is too close already."
It was dark. They had to feel their way in, inch by inch.
"Trouble with sea caves like this, is that they cave in," said one of Benito's companion's cheerfully. "I went into one near Capri on my first voyage. They said it used to be a bigger one but it caved in."
"I needed to know that," grumbled Benito. "Reckon we can strike a light now? We're well into this thing and we've curved away from the sea. They shouldn't be able to see it from outside, and we need to work out how to anchor safely."
"It's as black as pitch in here. We'll need to chance it."
Someone struck a lucifer. A lamp wick caught.
Benito looked at the five Greek fishing-boats that were in there already. And at the people on them and on the shore-ledges. There were an awful lot of arquebuses, pistols, arrows and just plain rocks all ready to come their way.
Benito was extremely glad to recognize at least one of the vessels.
"Captain Taki! Spiro! Kosti! It's me! Benito!"
* * *
It was as near to inevitable that the caveful of fishing boats should have its own taverna, with a supply of the wine that Benito recalled so well.
"Why is this stuff so vile?" He demanded, eyeing the cup of russet-colored liquid. "And why do you all drink it?"
Spiro drew himself up in affront. "If you don't like our kakotrigi, don't drink it! I'll relieve you of the burden." He reached for Benito's cup. "It is a wine of the Corfiote character, and like us, it is hard to harvest. The grape clings to the stalk like we cling to our soil."
Benito held his cup out of reach. "I'm paying for this round. You snatch my drink when you're paying."
"Which will probably mean the end of the world is at hand, so you might as well drink it anyway," said Kosti.
"You're paying? I'd have had the mavrodáphne then," said Spiro with his wry grin. "Kakotrigi is cheap crap. But you get used to it. Even get to like it, if you drink enough."
And for a few cups they could have shelter for their ships, and advice on where the Hungarian troops were. It struck Benito as a bargain.
"How did you make it back? Did you have any problems?"
Taki laughed and waved his arms expansively. "I told you I was the finest seaman around. We sailed rings around them."
"We came back in a patch of bad weather. We nearly missed the island," said Kosti.
"I hate to ask this. But just where the hell are we?"
Spiro rolled his eyes. "Great sailors, these Venetians. Masters of the Mediterranean. You're about a league and a half away from Paleokastritsa. And your dangerous friend is about four leagues away. Together with his blonde with the . . ." Spiro crooked his
arms in front of him.
Benito grinned. This was going to be easier than he'd thought. He looked speculatively at the Corfiote sailors. "How are things going with Erik's private little war?"
Taki laughed shortly. "He doesn't have to do much anymore. The peasants are killing and sabotaging whenever they get the chance. Those Hungarians can't make up their minds what to do. One day it's reprisals and the next it's being nice to peasants. But the story is they ate a child from one of the villages down south. The father cooperated with them because they had his son hostage. And while he did that they ate the boy, like those Vinlanders did to old Cheretis' favorite goat. And fed the bones to their dog. There's this big yellow dog that goes about with 'em sometimes. People say it's no natural dog. Say it can be shot without being killed."
"That was Georgio's story," said Kosti. "Georgio once had a wild pig get drunk on fermented windfall apples in his master's orchard . . . and he tried to shoot it when it was sleeping it off. From about three feet away! He still missed it."
"Well, yes," admitted Taki. "But Serakis says he saw the boy's waistcoat and the thigh bone. Tooth marks right into it."
Benito scratched his chin, thoughtfully. "Doesn't sound like they're popular. So how do you think you lads and the other fishermen would feel about helping the Venetians do a bit of quiet raiding? Sink a few of those patrol vessels?"
"With our fishing boats? Are you crazy?"
"With the galleys. You spot them from shore. Dark nights we run out and sink 'em."
They eyed him with interest. Kosti's grin was feral. "Should make night-fishing around here safer," said Taki with a nod.
* * *
Even with a guide from the fishermen it was Erik's men who spotted them first. He plainly had scouts out. And any Hungarian patrol was going to have to deal with an ambush.
Erik himself came out to greet them. The Icelander was, Benito thought, looking as happy as he'd ever seen him. Obviously things were going exceptionally well for him with his Vinlander girl.
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