It was the ever-vigilant Peregrino Bua, at the front of their column, who first smelled trouble. He reined in his horse and raised a fist, which checked the riders behind him. His unease washed back down the column like a wave. The communal singing died mid-beat.
Sliding from his mount, Bua began to move cautiously into the underbrush of the dell. The Captain gave a hand signal and other men dismounted and began to follow. The rest of the company brought their horses together in a tight bunch around the ladies.
Amid their held breaths, Anna became aware that the birdsong was not the mixed calls of wood pigeon and lark. Every note was the croaking caw of a crow or raven. Carrion birds.
Ankle-deep in ivy, Bua stopped and pointed at something on the ground. From the track, it first appeared to Anna to be a fallen branch. A bird hopped away as the stratioti came closer and began lifting the branch from the tangle of vines. As it turned and passed through a shard of sunlight, the illusion was lost. It was no branch at all, but an arm.
A body was still attached.
‘Pretty fresh!’ Bua called out. ‘And not just one. There are three corpses here.’
Anna’s insides suddenly felt like stone. The cawing of the crows was even louder on the other side of the path. A wake of black wings gathered a dozen meters ahead in the undergrowth, darting back and forth to the tree canopy.
The Captain had seen it too. He sent stratioti to pick deeper and deeper into the undergrowth and almost every step brought the discovery of another body. The dell was like a necropolis.
All strength had fled from Anna’s limbs. Be brave. Be brave. She tried not to look directly at the corpses, but somehow once you knew they were there it was impossible not to see the hemisphere of a head or the clammy white flesh of a limb through the weeds. She tried not to look. She even closed her eyes, but then all she could see were corpses. Lying in the streets, floating in the Golden Horn around their boat as John tried desperately to pull them clear of the burning city. Be brave, be brave! Be brave like you were once before!
‘I had John to make me brave then,’ Anna said aloud.
‘What?’ Eudokia turned to Anna.
‘Nothing.’
Reasoning that by now any attacker would have struck, Anna dismounted and forced herself to venture towards the path edge, determined to confront her fear. The soldiers must have found over twenty bodies already.
‘These are Lueger’s men,’ Rallis called out.
Peregrino Bua frowned. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Every badge so far has been the same quartered field.’
‘That would mean almost his entire retinue was butchered here,’ said the crocodile. ‘What sort of bandits could pull that off?’
Anna was only half-listening. The underbrush was a mixture of leaf litter, shrubs and tangled ground-vines. A patchwork of brown and green, through which her eye had been drawn by a slither of snow white. It lay half-covered within the fronds of the bush into which it had been sloughed like a towel at the steam baths. She reached between the branches and drew it out.
The long sock of the tiftik slid easily through the green leaves and with only a little shaking of her wrist, the stiffened band of the uskyuf followed. She was still cradling it with both hands when Eudokia reached her.
‘What is it?
It took Anna a moment to answer. She had never held one before and the touch of it on her skin had an almost totemic effect on her memory. No, she had never held one, but she had seen far too many. ‘It’s a bork,’ she said. ‘The cap of a janissary.’
When Anna turned back towards the road, the rest of the company could see clearly what she had found. ‘Well there’s your answer,’ Rallis said to the crocodile. ‘It weren’t no bandits.’
‘Turks? This far north?’ said Bua.
‘A raiding party perhaps,’ the Ambassador suggested. ‘They might have learned about the turmoil in Vienna and guessed Carniola would be open for pillage.’
‘They’d be right,’ said the crocodile.
The Captain’s grim face grew somehow grimmer. ‘This changes matters considerably,’ he said to the Ambassador. ‘We must turn back.’
‘Turn back?’ Anna said in horror.
‘Basilissa, it is too dangerous to continue now,’ said the Captain.
‘But we can’t give up! What about Wallachia?’ she said almost pleadingly.
‘Basilissa, Lueger’s force was far stronger than we are. The Black Sheep cannot protect you against whatever wiped these Austrians out.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ Her voice fell and she studied the undergrowth at her feet, desperately trying to think what to do. Turning back would cost her the commune but pressing on might cost her life. The bork still lay in her hands. Its touch seemed to recall every nightmare she had suffered during those first months in Ainos and Rome before she had reached the safety of the lagoon. Venice. She was safe in Venice. The Captain would know best. If he said they must turn back, then they should.
The Ambassador said, ‘If there is a Turkish war band on the loose, we’ve no notion in which direction it lies. It’s as likely behind us as ahead. Turning around may prove the riskier course.’
‘And if it’s not simply a raiding party?’ said the Captain. ‘If it’s the vanguard of their whole blessed army?’
‘Lueger’s strength might have made him a target,’ the Ambassador replied in a lawyerly tone. ‘Perhaps the Turks only attacked them because they’d not leave so large a force in their rear? To the Turks your men will appear just another small band of thieves.’
‘Not only to the Turks,’ muttered Sphrantzes.
‘Perhaps,’ said the Captain. ‘The truth is we can be certain of nothing except that somebody killed twenty Austrian men-at-arms here. Whomever they were, we would do well to avoid them.’
‘And the best way to do that, surely, would be by reaching Gradec,’ said the Ambassador. ‘We can be behind those walls before nightfall. If there is no further sign of danger, we can pick up a boat on the Sava and sail down it to Belgrade. Your alternative would have us riding blindly back through these forests for days.’
Sphrantzes had moved to Anna’s shoulder. ‘Playing princess was never supposed to be so messy, was it? I’m afraid leadership entails more than grand titles and chats at the ducal palace, Basilissa.’ He managed to turn the word into something hateful. ‘If your father were here, doubtless he’d locate the Turks and surrender.’
‘And Constantine?’ Anna snapped. ‘He’d race after them looking to throw all our lives away for a scrap of glory.’
‘You didn’t know him at all!’ Sphrantzes howled.
‘And you don’t know me!’
Her anger, Anna found, was a rock on which to rally. The earlier fears stirred by the butchery around them vanished and were replaced by a burning energy in her veins. She turned to the Captain and flung the bork down in the dirt. ‘The Ambassador is right. We can let nothing stop us, least of all them.’
The Captain blew out his cheeks. ‘Very well. Let’s make haste for Gradec and see what news can be had there.’
With only a creek between them, the twin settlements of Gradec and Kaptol nestled beside one another like a married couple: The tall burgher and its gothic-spired bride. Gradec, a hilltop merchant town, overlooked from its Mongol-proof walls the elegant cathedral of Kaptol dressed by its kirtle of monasteries. Over the years the two communities had bickered like an old couple too. Not for nothing was the crossing lying across their shared creek known as the bloody bridge.
There was no sign of blood in the water as the column of riders clattered across the wooden planks, nor of any phantasmal Turk war-band. Instead, the banks of the creek were dotted with the languidly turning wheels of watermills and a group of women washing out the monastery laundry. Thigh-deep in water, a few wary-eyes lifted up at the train of armoured horsemen as the white Cistercian robes were wrung-out.
The mounted column passed with good nature: a wink and a smile, an apple t
ossed to a boy mending a fishing net by the reeds. The pretty faces of two ladies stood out among the harsh male features as the column trotted onto the jetty of a mill.
This tributary branch of the Sava was often cluttered with boats unloading cargo brought from Belgrade or loading produce from the monastery mills to take back and sell. It was a regular enough traffic and a natural place to find a barge heading down river to where the Sava joined the Danube at Belgrade. The Captain had warned it might take a day or so to find a suitable boat, but as fortune had it, one was already moored there when they arrived. In ebullient moods, the men of the Black Sheep Company stretched themselves about the deck and looked forward to a restful few days sail after a hard week in the saddle.
Standing at the rail, Anna looked glumly down into the water. As the shock of the corpse-strewn dell wore off, it had been replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion. Turks! What did she ever think she was doing? She was safe in Venice. What had possessed her to venture out where they might find her again? Perhaps they should have turned back like the Captain suggested. Wallachia still seemed far away, and Venice even further.
The crew were making ready to cast off when a commotion broke out on the riverbank. Anna looked up and saw two of the crew at the foot of the gangway, wrestling with a large man who appeared determined to come up it. Halfway down the plank, the boat-master stood bellowing for the churl to clear off.
The growing noise was drawing more spectators. ‘Someone wants a ride but doesn’t want to pay?’ said Nikolaos. ‘The world’s full of freeloaders.’
The scuffling bodies staggered apart and revealed the quartered badge on the troublemaker’s chest. ‘An Austrian survivor,’ Anna said in shock.
‘Erasmus Lueger himself if I’m not mistaken,’ said the Ambassador from a little further down the boat rail.
He was not mistaken. The tall, muscular knight was beginning to get the upper hand on the two-man blockade and the master was reaching for a weapon. The Captain moved to block the top of the gangway. The Austrian took a pace backwards and looked over the heads of the deckhands. ‘Please!’ he called out. ‘Please, take me with you. The Turks! The Turks are hereabouts. They slaughtered us and they will slaughter you too if you’re not careful!’
The boat rail was now crowded with every member of the Black Sheep and the laundry women had all stopped their work to stare.
‘Is he one of your men?’ asked the boat-master.
The Captain spat over the plank edge.
‘Please!’ Lueger called again. ‘Please, take me as your prisoner. It’s worth your while. Trieste will ransom me. Just don’t leave me to the Turks!’
‘Quit hollering about Turks or every monk in Kaptol will be scrambling aboard!’ said the Captain.
‘Let him up.’
The words were out almost before Anna knew what she was saying.
The Captain looked back at her. “Basilissa?’
‘Let him aboard, Captain.’ Anna moved down the row of gawping faces to confront the Captain at the gangway.
‘I don’t think that would be wise,’ the Captain said. He kept his voice raised, as if he was addressing the Ambassador and not the woman stood in front of him.
Fine. Ignore me. I’ll ignore you too. Anna called down to the Austrian, ‘Messer Luger, I accept your surrender and shall take you as prisoner on your word as a knight that you will behave with honour.’
‘I do! I swear it!’
‘Let him up,’ Anna told the two crewmen. For a moment they just stared expectantly back at Captain Spandounes.
‘He’s an honourless snake,’ the Captain said to Anna.
‘I have trusted your judgement on Paulo Barbo,’ she said. ‘Now trust mine.’
‘Basilissa!’ the Captain said with exasperation.
‘Don’t you think it might be useful to learn a little more about what happened with the Turks? Or is one man too much for the Black Sheep to handle?’
She saw the muscles clench in the Captain’s jaw. With a wave of his hand he signalled for the crewmen to let Luger pass.
‘I don’t think this is wise,’ the Ambassador said in his crisp voice as the Austrian sheepishly came aboard,
Anna was unrepentant. ‘I’ll abandon no man to the Turks,’ she called back and everyone on deck could hear the conviction in her words.
A rudimentary table was fashioned from barrels in front of the after-castle and spread with an old weighted-down sail. Smaller casks were arranged for seating around it and an iron pot of beans sat steaming in the middle. Anna was not sure what lies the Captain had told the boat-master to make him treat them so reverently, but she appreciated the effort. Peregrino Bua lurked like a jailer at Lueger’s back as he took his seat between the Captain and ambassador. The other stratioti were all lounging on the deck down by the bows.
‘Well?’ said the Ambassador. ‘Perhaps, Messer Lueger, you would like to tell us what happened.’
Lueger’s forehead wore the discoloured badge of a bruise, which Anna assumed had been a Turkish gift, but there was no other outward sign of injury. Taking a swig of wine, Lueger nodded and said, ‘You seem to already know. Turks. Hit our camp in the dead of night.’
‘Camp?’ said Anna doubtfully.
‘We found your men, Messer Lueger,’ the Ambassador said. ‘They were not in camp. They were gathered around the sides of the road.’
Before Lueger could answer, Anna said, ‘Were you lying in wait for us?’
For a moment, the vivid face appeared on the brink of erupting in denial but then seemed to think the better of it. The cupid’s bow lips parted into a boyish grin. ‘We were lying in wait, yes that’s true. For you? Maybe, or another plum target. I’m catholic in taste.’
‘But it was Turks that attacked you?’ said the Captain. ‘You are certain?’
‘Upon my honour,’ said Lueger.
Sphrantzes only half-checked a derisive laugh.
‘How many?’ the Captain said.
Lueger shrugged. ‘Hard to tell in the thick of it. A lot. They had hand cannon as well as bows and swords. I did what I could.’
He fled, thought Anna. He ran, or else he would be feeding the crows like the others.
‘Turks,’ said the Captain with a shake of the head. ‘So far north of the Danube.’
‘They might have crossed the river from Bosnia,’ the Ambassador suggested with a nod towards the Sava’s southern bank. ‘The boat-master says the trouble there has worsened. The Duke of Saint Sava has come to blows with his son.’
‘Again?’ said Lueger. ‘Vladislav Kosaca has already left court once before because the girl from Siena he was about to marry proved more partial to the Duke’s old mutton than his lamb chop!’ Lueger laughed, alone, at his own smutty joke.
‘Whatever the cause,’ said the Ambassador ‘it appears the younger Kosaca has called in the aid of Turks. There was fighting last month around the Neretua bridge. With a new king sitting uncertainly on the throne, the Bosnian crown looks precarious.’
‘Chaos,’ said Lueger with a shake of the head. ‘From Vienna to Jajce and across to the Euxine Sea. It hardly improves further north from what I hear. Poland, Hungary, the whole world is in chaos!’
It was at that moment, as if fate were a dramatist, that Lueger’s point was made vivid by the solid thump of an arrow burying itself into the after-castle wall above his head.
The diners scattered like disturbed carrion birds. The table of barrels now a parapet to cower behind. Even as the arrow shaft still quivered in the wood, the master had the boat heeling away from the forested riverbank and out into midstream.
‘It’s the Turks.’ Lueger wailed as he took cover beside Anna and Eudokia.
But it appeared that it was not the Turks, for no further arrows followed the first as the thumping heartbeats in their chests counted the seconds and then lengthened into minutes.
The crocodile rose to his feet and presented himself as a target. ‘Children, probably,’ he said. No further shot
s came feathering from the silent, hostile forest. ‘Got their hands on their father’s bow and thought they’d play at outlaws.’
‘Or outlaws,’ said Rallis, still crouched behind his shield. ‘Outlaws who saw us and thought better of it.’
The diners gingerly re-emerged but could find no more appetite beneath the inauspicious arrow.
‘Chaos,’ said Anna as the make-shift table was cleared. She had moved to stand beside Erasmus Lueger at the rail furthest from the passing riverbank. Nodding up at the bright coloured fletching she added, ‘Chaos the whole world over, as you said. But who should be surprised, when knights forget their honour and take up banditry?’
Lueger looked down his long nose at her and said, ‘You mistake symptom for cause.’
‘Do I? Where else then should I direct my ire?’
‘We are leaderless,’ said Lueger. ‘Emperor Frederik cares only to fight his brother in Vienna while Turks run wild through his southern province.’ He pointed back towards the far riverbank. ‘As you heard, Bosnia’s no different.’
‘And your answer to that is to toss away chivalry, abrogate law and take up devilry?’
‘There has been no abrogation of the law on my land,’ said Lueger. ‘Forty families would testify to the fact, and to the employment I give. If other lords are too distant, too disinterested to uphold the same on theirs, am I to blame for exploiting the fact?’
‘Yes!’ said Anna.
Lueger shrugged, ‘Madonna, thank you for saving me back there and please forgive me my ill-judged venture. God has already condemned my men for it and fittingly, he has punished me most severely of all. Instead of heaven, I remain here, burdened by the weight of their souls on my conscience.’
It was the first words from his lips that sounded authentic to her. She felt pity and a strange kinship with him in that moment. It was hard to continue living sometimes when others had not. A chorus of ghosts began to gather in her own mind: the candles of Torcello. There was more than a little in Lueger’s unrepentant gall, in the mischievous eyes tinged with deep sorrow, in the wounded smile of this well-made, fair-haired knight that reminded her of John Grant. Had it been that which prompted her to act as she had back at the riverside in Gradec?
Porphyry and Blood Page 12