The last time he'd been there, there'd been a guard on it, to keep away the curious from the house of the "black magician," Aldo Morando. He'd been there to look at the fraud's cellar. It might do as a place to hide. Alberto needed his leg tended, needed to rest. The gates of the inner curtain wall were bound to be closed by now. They were stuck on the outside, and Benito had a feeling getting in might be next to impossible, even for him.
"Come. We must hide better before the footmen start searching for loot."
Alberto, wincing and trying not to cry out, struggled up, leaning on Benito. "God. I can't. Leave me, Valdosta."
"Can't do that. That gabby wife of yours told me to look after you, big man. Come on. There's a place just over there."
* * *
It didn't take Benito long to pry away the boards sealing the doorway. Inside, Benito found the place much as he remembered it. Even with Morando in prison people had been too superstitious, after the initial curiosity, to come here. The trapdoor, as he remembered, was in the passage. He hoped it wasn't too damaged to put back.
Only when he looked in the passage . . . the broken door wasn't there. He had to get down on hands and knees to find it. The knight's axe had split the thin stone, but someone had put it back together again and smeared dirt very carefully in the crack.
Benito used the faithful Shetland knife to lever it up. Someone had nailed the split wood together again also.
Who? And why?
The whole thing smelled of trouble. But could it be worse than the Hungarians?
He helped Alberto to the stairs. "I can crawl," said Alberto through gritted teeth. "You close it."
Benito did so, as Alberto edged his way downwards. It was as dark as Stygia in here. There was also a bad smell. Nothing very strong, just the trace of corruption that came from a putrefying corpse or carcass not buried deeply enough.
Suddenly, someone struck a light on the far side of the garish cellar. And Benito knew at last the answer to the mystery that had been plaguing Maria.
Sophia Tomaselli looked a lot more like a storybook witch now. Her once magnificent hair was wild and tangled. She wasn't wearing any clothes. She'd painted herself with something . . . black now, anyway. Some of the patterns were smeared.
She had a wheel-lock pistol. She was also swaying drunk—which was presumably why they'd made it this far.
She blinked owlishly at them. "Two of you. What's wrong with him?"
Benito really hadn't had time to look. He'd been just ahead, running for the gate when Alberto had gone down with a scream. He knew the man had been hit in the lower leg. He was in pain and bleeding. "I don't know. I'll have a look." He spoke in as level a voice as he could manage.
Sophia's eyes narrowed. "You! You're Valdosta. The wonderful hero." She snarled that out in such a way as to make it abundantly plain that whatever he was in her opinion, it was neither wonderful nor heroic.
"I need to see to his leg," said Benito calmly.
He might as well not have spoken. "Come over here. Come here or I'll shoot you." Her voice was ugly with triumph. "My prayers to the Devil have been answered. I saw how she looked at you, that scuolo puta . . . Baby-sit! Ha."
She stepped over to the altar and took up a knife. "Now we're going to have the true sacrifice." The little giggle that followed had a half-insane flavor to it. "The one that Morando was too scared to do. But I'm not afraid! I promised if he let me destroy her I would give him the old sacrifice. Killing you will do both. First I'm going to cut . . ." She gestured obscenely with the knife in her hand, for the first time pointing the pistol at the roof and not them.
Benito threw the Shetland knife. By now, the once-stocky boy had the shoulders and chest of a very powerful man. The blade went right through her thin chest, stopping only when the hilt slammed into the flesh. Sophia was flung backwards onto Morando's mock-altar.
Benito already had his rapier out, and was running forward. But . . .
She wasn't going to vent her spite on anyone ever again. From the amount of blood, the Shetland knife had split her heart.
"Holy mother of God! Let's get out of here!" Alberto was already trying to crawl up the stairs again.
Benito looked at the dead woman. Death had eased the lines of hatred, fear and misery from her face. "Stay there, Alberto. She was crazy and now she's dead."
"She said she prayed to the Devil to destroy Maria. That she promised human sacrifice . . ."
"And look what it got the poor silly bitch. Don't worry, Alberto. The best priest I know examined this place and said it was all a fake. A complete fraud. She was crazy and she believed in it, but it's nothing for us to worry about. Your leg and the Hungarians out there are a lot more serious." Benito tugged at his knife, struggling to free it from the bone.
"But you did come here. Here of all places."
Cleaning the knife on the piece of black velvet that Morando had used for his pseudo altar cloth, Benito shrugged. "Maria says this is Corfu. Magic here happens. And so do coincidences."
He took up the lamp and the knife and started toward Alberto. And then stopped, his eyes caught by something to the side. "Well, I'll be . . . No wonder she could hide out here! Morando must have been prepared to do just that. There's more water and food stashed in here than there is in the whole Citadel. This was a false wall."
Benito walked over to Alberto and started gently cutting the fabric away from the bloody mess. A bit of bone protruded from the jagged wound. Benito sucked breath between his teeth. "I wish I was my brother. I really wish he was here. I think you've got a open fracture of the fibula. I'll have to see what the hell I can find for a splint. And let's see if that woman left any of Morando's wine. I could use a cup myself, actually. Even kakotrigi would do."
Alberto managed a weak laugh. "Kakotrigi is like this place. You get used to it. Get to like it."
* * *
The hagfish had swum as close to the edge of the shingle as it dared. If anyone had looked down from the walls now, they would have seen the sinuous shape of it in the clear azure water. Fortunately, the fury of the attack—as seen through the eyes of the shaman's hawks—was on the front wall. The Hungarian forces had gained a foothold inside the broken wall, and men were starting to pour through the gap and up onto the walls. The shaman was able to change into the other form and lope ashore. Shaking the water clear of its fur, it ran to where the wall was pounded into steep rubble. Here, with no defenders, it gained entrance. With the fleeing townspeople, it ran through the inner curtain-wall gates.
It began searching. Tasting the air. Relishing the fear, hating the crowd.
* * *
On the slope behind Corfu town, Giuliano Lozza marshaled his men. He was de facto commander of the Corfiote irregular army, because he had the most soldiers by far. The Venetian captain had had the sense to recognize an unstoppable local force and go along with it. And across the island, so had everyone else. The story of the naked Magyar having to walk back to camp in the buff spread from village to peasant to fishermen. Greeks loved to laugh, and their sense of humor could be a bit rough.
This man Lozza was no foreigner, they'd decided. This was someone who spoke their language and knew more about olives than any Libri d'Oro they'd ever met. He'd even married one of their own, a peasant woman.
Once they'd called him Loukoúmia—fat little sweetmeat. No one did that any more. Not since he'd given a very pointed but nonlethal lesson in swordsmanship to one idiot who had dared put a hand on his wife.
"We beat neither our women nor our olive trees on Corfu," he'd said firmly and finally. It was a local peasant saying, too. That was the final and vital detail. Women asked their menfolk why they hadn't joined.
Giuliano had nearly three thousand men, men with everything from old boar-spears to new and recently acquired Hungarian arquebuses. And torches.
Waiting. Like the great banks of heavy cloud that hung seemingly just off shore. The rain never came. The Corfiotes were going to.
&n
bsp; When the Hungarian units had begun pulling back three days ago, Giuliano had known this was to be the big assault. He'd begun sending out word, and the Corfiotes had come.
Giuliano was a master swordsman. He knew he was outnumbered and that the enemy had the edge in professionalism and equipment. But he also knew that it was not the strength of the swordsman that wins the day. It was the timing of the stroke. With the Hungarians sweeping into the outer Citadel, now was the time for the stroke. Loot, or the desire for it, made the Hungarian encampment virtually empty. The artillerymen were sitting around, disgruntled at not being able to join in the spree. The cannon would have to be moved now. All they got out of this was hard work.
And Giuliano Lozza.
Chapter 97
"The circle is unbroken. Out of life comes death, and out of death, life."
Maria looked at the point in the rock, engraved with a circle—the symbol of the mother—and surrounded by spirals so old that time was weathering them away. From the middle of that circle the water of the sacred spring had flowed—apparently unceasingly, for millennia. Now, as she watched, a tiny drop slowly formed and dripped down to the clay basin that stood in for the cracked holy pool.
Maria put Alessia down beside the cracked pool. The baby girl was too listless to go anywhere. Too listless to even cry. Maria turned with sad eyes to Renate. "You'll see her safe to Katerina, Holy Mother?"
Tears streaked the older woman's face. She nodded. "This can fix things, Maria. If you are willing."
Maria shrugged. "It is too late for me. Benito's dead. It'll be too late for Alessia soon. So what do I have to do?"
"Drink the water of the holy pool. Take up the almond. Offer yourself as a willing bride. I will do the rest."
Maria stared up at the figure of the Mother, the old, old figure cut out of the living rock. Legs like barrels, fat thighs that stood for the plenty She provided, the cleft of Her mystery, overhung with the great belly of fertility, the huge domes of pendulous breasts, the round ball of a head, featureless except for a hint of carving that might have been hair, a mouth. How old was She? Who had carved Her? Was there still any power in Her at all?
Maria tried to feel something from that figure; all she could feel was her own despair.
Well, even if nothing happened, there would be a few drops of water.
She went to the basin; raised it to her lips, and drank. With the taste of sweet water still on her tongue, she walked the two steps to the altar, and took up the half almond.
Her fingers touched it, with a shock.
Her hand closed involuntarily on it, and she whirled, to stare at the Mother.
Gathering about the shapeless form were tiny, dustlike sparks. Only they weren't dust, they were sparks of golden light, more and more of them with every moment, outlining the figure, then enshrouding it, enveloping it in a blanket, a haze of gold, the color of corn, the color of wheat, the color of life . . .
A sigh eased from her; she closed her eyes, and let the power lead her where she needed to go.
* * *
The yellow dog found the cliff entrance to the temple-cave by nose. There was only woman-scent coming from it. And, for the first time on this accursed island, also the strong, heady smell of powerful magics. Unless the other had sent a woman . . . he was here first. The only problem was that the cave mouth was up there, and the yellow dog form was not good for climbing trees. He wondered briefly if he should assume his human form, but decided against it. That was by far the most vulnerable.
He hesitated. By the intensity of the magics up there, time was not on his side. He changed into the hagfish form. This body did not like the dry, but it could climb like a snake.
He ignored the screams of people who saw the huge, oily-black monster twining its way up the graveyard poplar, and oozing into the cave mouth. Soon it would not matter.
It was dusty and dry and spiked with stalagmites here, so the shaman assumed the doglike form again. His nose led him, hastening, up the narrow labyrinthine passages, panting and slobbering a little.
Yes. This was what he had been sent to find. To the shaman's senses, the entire place pulsed with power; throbbing like a racing heart. The master's advisor, Mindaug, had said the master needed to be physically present to claim this. The shaman wished he knew how to do so himself.
He ran into the temple chamber yowling in triumph, ready to fight.
There were two humans there. An old woman with long white hair, unconscious and crumpled on the floor. And a baby—dying, by the smell of it.
He could feast later. The shaman's nose told him there had been three. He quested for that third, to rend, to kill, with the magical energies in this place growing around him. To his eyes the place was full of sheets of green light.
She wasn't here—yet she had not left.
The shaman gave a half-vulpine, half-canine sort of shrug and began the ritual to call his master's physical presence here.
* * *
It was as if all solid things had become shadows. Maria, with the almond in her hand, her firm chin up and heart hammering, walked down steps of light set into the shadow.
She could not have said how long she walked, but she came at length to a great hall. At the far end were two thrones. A tall man stood up from the left-hand throne and walked toward her, palms out. On his right hand rested the other half of the almond. A tall man, made of shadows, as the Mother had been made of light. Shadows, but not evil—the restful shadows of twilight, the dark before dawn. And yet, she sensed there was a great deal concealed by those shadows, and she willed them away.
"Greetings, bride." He seemed to be looking through to the inside of her. He did not seem to notice that his concealment was melting until he stood before her unveiled. "Your spirit is very beautiful."
He was black-haired and gray-eyed; lean, pale, grim-looking. She set her jaw. Just because she had agreed to this, did not mean she was going into it blindly. Oh, no. All right, the marriage with Umberto, not unlike this one, had worked out—but she'd known Umberto, hadn't she? This—Person—she knew nothing at all about. So before she took the last irrevocable step, she had to know. She would do it, yes, but she still had to know.
"Just exactly who are you?" she demanded. "Husband," she added, as an afterthought.
It took the man aback. In fact, he literally stepped back a pace.
"You are a willing bride?" The pale-visaged man showed both surprise and a hint of doubt.
Maria nodded, feeling completely out of her depth, and brusque with it. "Yes, of course I am. The priestess said that without a bride the Mother could only resist, passively. That without a bride you would not intercede. Look," she continued, in growing irritation, "my baby was dying. My friends are dead or dying. The man I loved, Benito Valdosta, is dead. I was too proud to tell him that I loved him, and now he's dead. The whole island is dying. Somebody had to do something, so I said I would do it. I knew I had to be willing and I had to be fertile, of childbearing age. I didn't know I had to know all about it."
Just like a man! Assuming, she supposed, that because things had always gone a particular way, they always would go that way! Just proving Gods could be as dense and intransient as humans.
"I'm a new acolyte, and somehow or other nobody got around to telling me what I'm supposed to be doing. The priestess assumed I knew everything already, I suppose, and I assumed she'd tell me sometime and never got around to asking. I knew that to take up the almond, to become the bride, meant I would die. But if that was what it took to get you to help, I was willing. You are going to help us, aren't you?"
Perhaps that last came out a bit aggressively, but—oh, stupid man-God! Why was He just standing there, as if none of this mattered to Him? Was He going to act, or not?
He seemed altogether startled, now. "It is not that I did not wish to help. It is just that I cannot. My only connection with the Mother is through her embodiments. You are the embodiment of the Mother. The things above the earth are hers
only. I have no power there, but I can lend my strength. I always have willingly given my help to my Mother."
Maria was now more confused than she'd been before. "I don't understand," she repeated. "Just who are you?"
He blinked, slowly. "I am the Lord of the underworld. Aidoneus is the name I am sometimes given."
"The devil?" He didn't seem evil. Just distant.
He shook his head in violent negation, the first time he'd shown any sign of emotion. "No! Shaitan's realms are elsewhere, and I want none of his kind of darkness." He spread his hands, as if in apology. "The spirit world is a complex place. All things are possible here. And none."
Well, that was certainly unhelpful. It was like arguing with Eneko Lopez. "It all seems to be shadows," she said doubtfully.
He nodded, more certain. "This has been called Shadowkeep, at times. And Hades, which is nothing like Hell. More often, simply the realm of the dead. Some of the dead leave here to go on to other realms, but all are here at least for a time. Time is meaningless to the dead. Of course, you are not dead, so you are not outside of time."
She wrinkled her forehead. She thought the point of this was that she died; this was getting more confusing by the moment. "So am I not dead?"
He shook his head. "No. Only a living one can be the living embodiment of life. One day you will die, but you are not destined to do so for many years. You will stay down here and be my wife. And the Mother Earth will be fertile and grow, because I can lend Her my strength."
Stay here and be his wife? Was that what all this bride business was about? To be a real—wife? To a God? Or something—
Well, she'd accepted dying. And you could get used to anything.
She shook herself all over, and one thing swam up out of her sea of confused thoughts. Alessia. What was going on out there? Or up there? Or wherever "there" was?
"Alessia—my baby?" Surely the Lord of the Dead would know if Alessia was dead? Or if the Hungarians had broken through . . . there'd be many dead, including Stella.
He looked past her, his face gone indifferent again. "Your child is lying beside the sacred pool in the temple of the great Goddess. There is an evil creature of darkness, a cursed one, sniffing at her." He sounded as if it all meant nothing to Him. Actually, it probably didn't.
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