Assassin's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Before Skiouros actually saw it, Parmenio was once more moving, propelling him with a purpose towards a narrow alley mouth between two tall buildings: a butcher’s shop and a shoemaker, he noted with ironic interest. His eyes picked out the shape of a man in the darkness of the alley. Blinking, Skiouros found his feet and his drive once more and ran into the darkness just as a second ‘crack’ split both the night and the wooden post of the butcher’s shop on the corner.

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness and Parmenio and he skidded to a halt before the figure, Skiouros once more started in surprise. It had been a shock to discover that one of the Turks had made it out of the castle and had called to them. It was a greater shock to realise that this was actually no lackey from Cem’s entourage. The swarthy figure in the shadows was dressed in a black and silver jacket and baggy trousers tucked into knee high red boots, as well as the turban of an officer. A sailor! God knows, he had seen enough of them in that epic journey from Crete to Spain to recognise one even in the dark.

  ‘Come with me,’ the man said and turned on his heel.

  Something about the man was familiar.

  ‘I know you,’ Skiouros said in a breathless whisper, but the man was already moving off down into the gloomy alley with the sureness of a native, leading them into the dark, away from the French.

  EPILOGOS - A departure

  February, the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and ninety five.

  Skiouros estimated the distance they had travelled, evading the countless dangers of Napoli only through what seemed to be the preternatural instincts of the Turkish sailor. Skiouros had tried to speak to the man several times over the… what, two miles?... but their guide had refused to pause or divert his concentration, all his wits locked onto the complex, winding route that had led them down close enough to the port to smell the brine and the seagull shit, and back up, through the dark heart of the beleaguered city and then out to the north and west, ever further from the French threat.

  Now, far from the clamour and the danger of the centre, they skirted the edge of a high ridge upon which sat a heavy fortress, surrounded by the ranks and lines of the French army, still holding out in the name of the Neapolitan King despite the clear fact that his kingdom was gone, delivered into the hands of the French with barely a fist raised. The neighbourhood around the slope was little more than carbonised timber and wreckage, an entire quarter of Napoli burned out to give the army a clear run at the castle. But it was equally clear from the encamped force that despite the fact that they had lost, the Neapolitan garrison were unwilling to admit it, and were giving the French something to think about.

  Indeed, as they picked their way through ruined streets and between dangerously unstable timber skeletons, here and there they could see the remnants of a French artillery position smashed to pieces by their opposite numbers on the hill above.

  If ever he had had a thought to stay, the sight of what was now befalling Napoli was enough to convince Skiouros that it was time to leave the city - to leave Italy entire, really, though hopefully via Parmenio’s vessels that still sat anchored in Genoa’s port, unless the French had taken the place and its ships on their march south.

  The three men’s journey became considerably easier as they moved from the patrolled streets of the city into this carbonised wasteland where grasping burned timber fingers pointed accusingly at God in his heaven for what had been done to them.

  Skiouros shook his head sadly as they passed. Strangely, despite the horror of what had been done here, it would not be his worst memory of Italy when - if - they escaped the place. Even putting aside the deaths of so many good friends, he would evermore remember the lavish, gilded corruption that painted every surface and every face in this dreadful peninsula. The stranglehold the papacy and the nobles had upon their people. The dreadful conditions. The murder and mayhem, condoned by the rich and by men of God - perpetrated by the rich and by men of God! The thin veneer of civilization with which the Vatican and the Princes and Dukes covered the evil and base greed that ruled every ‘noble’ heart of Italy.

  He blinked as their guide came to a stop.

  Somehow, without him even noticing the change, they were out of Napoli itself. He hadn’t even seen the walls as they passed. Had there been a sally-port that stood open? Ahead, a swathe of green fields meandered up the slopes to the right, and down to the left, towards the extended outskirts of the city, where fishing villages nestled in the lee of the metropolis, the bay’s clear water lapping at them, a sizeable French fleet anchored within the breakwaters.

  ‘Wait,’ the Turk said quietly, and strolled off the side of the road to a farm shed that had seen much better days. Without a pause, the man threw open the door and stood back and to the side as there was a snorting and a creaking within and then finally a donkey and cart trundled out of the shadows, a wizened, ancient local on the driver’s board seat.

  ‘Get in,’ their guide gestured, clambering up into the back and shuffling into a comfortable position among the sacks. His senses battered beyond argument or too much deep thought, Skiouros clambered up after him and dropped over the side, followed by Parmenio, who winced at the pain in his arm as he landed.

  At a nod from the Turk, the driver shrugged and urged the beast into life, drawing them slowly away from the city. Skiouros shivered and pulled his cloak tight around him, and the Turk produced a thick, cheap wool blanket and threw it across the three of them to ward off the worst of the night’s chill.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Skiouros asked in Turkish, aware that while Parmenio would recognise the language from his years trading there, he spoke only a few stilted words of it. His captain friend was clearly too tired to care, and simply lay under the blanket, shivering, probing the wound on his arm, wincing and thinking.

  The Turk smiled curiously. ‘For now, a tiny hamlet without a name on the far side of the hill from Posilipo perhaps three miles west of here.’

  ‘Which means little to me.’

  The man smiled knowingly, and Skiouros pursed his lips. They had passed the worst danger, and the man no longer had to concentrate on his route, just sitting in the cart and waiting for three miles to pass, bouncing with every rut of the farm road. Time to address his question at last.

  ‘I know you.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Turk gave him an enigmatic smile from his wind-weathered, lined face.

  ‘From Palos.’

  Parmenio suddenly pulled himself upright. He may not speak Turkish, but that name was a name that would haunt them all for a long time to come.

  ‘What are you saying?’ the captain demanded of Skiouros in Greek. It struck the young man as interesting that a Greek had been speaking Turkish on Italian soil, and now an Italian was speaking Greek.’

  ‘Do you not remember this man? I last saw him in Palos. I know we were separated, but I think you might remember him too. He was with the old pirate on the hill when we ran. And I was nearly spitted by one of Hassan’s men down by the waterfront, but this one came out of nowhere and saved me. He seems to be making a habit of it.’

  To his surprise, the Turk smiled broadly and knowingly. ‘There is more to learn yet, Skiouros, son of Nikos,’ he replied in flawless Greek.

  Skiouros and Parmenio both stared as the man reached up and began to unwind his turban. The moon chose that portentous moment to make an appearance from behind the clouds, as the last coil of the turban came clear and the man lifted from the centre the conical hat that formed the core of the headgear. Silence descended on the cart as Skiouros and his friend stared at the black locks that fell clear now, the fragments of white bone in them clattering as they moved and shining bleached white in the silver moonlight.

  ‘You?’ Parmenio frowned.

  ‘But we lost you on board the Isabella when she was taken by Hassan!’ Skiouros breathed.

  ‘It would seem otherwise.’

  Skiouros blinked. ‘I heard someone - the old captain I think - shout a name when we were in P
alos. I was too busy fleeing for my life to think about it at the time. Cingeneler!’ He turned to Parmenio. ‘It’s a Turkish name for the Romani!’ Back once more to the Turk… to the Romani. ‘You went on to serve on one of the kadirga somehow? I did not recognise you in Palos.’

  The man smiled and leaned back comfortably. ‘I now serve under the greatest sailor and one of the best men in the Empire: Kemal Reis.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Kemal Reis is not your enemy, Skiouros of Istanbul. Your enemies have never truly been known to you thus far. Your enemies are insidious and secretive.’

  Skiouros shook his head.

  ‘I have no enemies now,’ he chuckled darkly, ‘barring a few hundred Italians and the entire French nation, though it seems that soon they will bring their cannon and their vulgar papist conquest to my homeland too. When we reach this hamlet by the coast, will you let us go? Somehow, I suspect we will manage to make our way back to Genoa.’

  The Romani shook his head, still smiling. ‘Three kadirga lie moored off the coast, hidden from the French by the headland of Posilipo. Kemal Reis awaits my return, and you will come with me.’

  ‘No. Not to ships. Not to the Ottoman pirates.’

  ‘Again, Kemal Reis is not your enemy. But come with me and I will tell you of those who are.’

  Skiouros glanced across to Parmenio, and to his surprise, the captain shrugged. ‘Who am I to gainsay a guardian angel? The time has come to depart Italy, Skiouros, and Orsini’s next of kin now owns my ship, so there is little point in racing back there. The sea is calling still, though, thank God.’

  Skiouros sagged. He had never thought beyond the object of his revenge. Perhaps he had never truly believed that he would survive Cem’s end. Certainly if he did, he had assumed that the way onwards would become obvious, but it seemed that God was not done complicating his life quite yet.

  A strange, whispered chuckle floated on the night breeze, almost inaudible above the cart and the donkey, almost inaudible, but Skiouros would recognise his brother’s voice anywhere. Lykaion’s head, he thought sharply. It remained in Heraklion in a casket, not resting where it should in the city of Constantine. And somewhere nearby, Don Diego de Teba would be eking out a living training some other poor fool in the art of the noble blade. He sighed and raised one eyebrow as he regarded the Romani who had changed - had saved - his life more than once.

  ‘We’re bound for Crete, aren’t we?’

  The night air whispered around the three kadirga as they lay at anchor off a small island in the middle of the sea far out of the sight of the Italian mainland. Kemal Reis had sent most of his men ashore for the night, and only a small group remained on watch. Skiouros and Parmenio waited on the Romani sailor to continue his tale…

  Dragi sparked one end of a short length of hemp rope and blew on it until it glowed orange, offending the night vision of his audience. Once the rope was burning slowly and a continuous tendril of blue-grey smoke arose from it, he placed it in the bronze bowl before him and, cupping his hands around his face, leaned forward and took a deep lungful of the sweet, heady smoke, allowing it to trail out slowly between his teeth once more as he concluded his second story.

  ‘And so the priest, when finally confronted with the object of his vengeance, discovered that only by becoming the man he so despised could he bring himself to kill him.’

  Skiouros had the grace to look a little uncomfortable at the phrasing, but Parmenio was nodding his understanding. ‘Revenge,’ the captain said, ‘is a hollow achievement. Orsini tried to tell us that in Genoa when this nightmare began.’

  Dragi smiled with surprising sympathy. ‘The priest could not kill the king, no matter how much he had desired it, for to do so he would lose himself, and his own soul was more important to him than a blood price.’

  Skiouros cleared his throat. ‘If this was supposed to be another of your prophetic tales, it fails on two counts: firstly, the deed is concluded before I heard it, and secondly, that is not how the deed ended.’

  ‘But you didn’t kill him,’ Parmenio said, nudging him.

  ‘Yes I did. I snuffed out his flame with a pillow.’

  ‘That didn’t kill him,’ the Genoese captain hissed. ‘That released him. Palaeologos killed him.’ He waited until Skiouros looked at him and peered into the Greek’s eyes. ‘And you wouldn’t have done it anyway. I don’t think you ever could.’

  Dragi paused to take another lungful of blue smoke and grin as it wisped between his clenched teeth.

  ‘It is a cautionary tale among some of my people, telling of the dreadful cost that vengeance demands of its perpetrator. It is a matter of some satisfaction for me that you did not succumb to the darkness of the wilful murderer. I had hoped to be able to tell you the tale before you embarked upon your quest, but this is the first time I have managed to find you since Palos.’

  ‘And you’ve never quite explained that…’ Parmenio frowned.

  Dragi ignored him and smiled. ‘So the vengeful priest remained a man of God and a good man, and that is how the story ends.’

  ‘The night is still young, Dragi, and there will be many more of them before Crete. If you really do only sing at funerals, you’d best have a lot of stories lined up. Better ones, for preference.’

  Dragi smiled at Skiouros.

  ‘Very well. Let me tell you the tale of the king-maker and the king-breaker…’

  Author's Note

  The Ottoman cycle is closing the loop now. Even before book one had ended, I knew that somewhere in the future, Skiouros would have to confront Cem Sultan. Clearly he was not ready for it in 1491. And so I took him west, delving into the world of the earliest Barbary pirates and bound for Palos de Frontera in 1492, because it had to be fate that Columbus would be setting off from there just in time for Skiouros to fall aboard. But when I came to write this third volume, it was clear that Skiouros had to have changed, to have grown a little, while retaining what made him quintessentially him.

  He had been a thief. Started as a thief, and then, when I took him on one of the most fascinating journeys I could imagine, he became - for a time - a priest. I made a conscious decision to gloss over the six months or so of Columbus’ first voyage. I wanted to have his time there something mysterious - a catalyst that has changed him, and I hope that came over. It was clear long before I came to write this book what its title would be. Skiouros has been a thief and a priest, and as he closed in his revenge upon Cem, he would have to become an assassin.

  But would Skiouros really kill in cold blood? The character I had created was not a character who could have done what needed to be done easily, and the unanswered questions of history melded together to give me a neat solution. More of that shortly.

  In the first two books, I had explored religion a little from Skiouros’ rather unique perspective, growing up as a boy in the Orthodox church, beset with tales of the horrendous deeds of the papists during their brief, violent rule there, and now living in a Muslim empire. I had given him a fresh view in the form of the Tuareg, who happily combined Islam with their own early tribal beliefs. Now I had the opportunity to show him facing the Roman church at a time when it was a dangerous, powerful, corrupt body - the antithesis of what it should have been. I have not been kind to Italy, I fear, but at this particular juncture in history, it is much harder to find positive aspects than negative ones.

  I hope I have kept Skiouros in line with his original character, despite the changes wrung in him, during this latest instalment, which has seen him travel the length of Italy in pursuit of a goal he could probably have never achieved.

  All the locations in the book are real places, most of which I have visited and studied, with the notable exception of the castle of Roccabruna, which is entirely fictional and yet based heavily on a number of Italian hilltop fortresses I have visited. I needed a place with a specific setup and a conflict that does not appear in the history books, and this could only be achieved with imagination and fiction. This is one of two places where
the book differs majorly from historical record, for those of you seeking inaccuracies. The other is in Napoli. In truth, King Charles was also quartered in the Castel Capuano during his stay, though I could see no real way I could have brought the plot to an end that way, and so… guilty as charged, m’lud. I tweaked history and had Charles elsewhere. It made sense. Well… it’s ‘historical fiction’, after all! My descriptions of the Castel Capuano are largely fictitious, also, given that it has changed its appearance utterly since those days, few visual records survive of the earlier palace, and I have been unable to visit the building as it is now occupied by municipal offices and is not open to the public.

  It is a matter of supreme irony that the exiled would-be sultan Cem was quartered in the same place at the same time as the exiled Emperor of Byzantium. This is true, if astounding, and while there is no evidence that Andreas was behind Cem’s death, motivationally it fits very well, does it not?

  A number of events I have used, as usual, were true ones, twisted to the plot of the book. During that winter when the French were camped outside the Castel Sant’Angelo, a section of wall did collapse. There is no truth to how I had it happen, and it was almost certainly due to recent shoddy work the Pope had had done, but I enjoyed playing with it.

  The expulsion of the Hospitallers from Cem’s guard and the Vatican is true, as is the fact that the one of them - the Catalan - remained. You might be gnawing a little on the fact that such an interesting plot thread as that vanishes with the death of the renegade Hospitaller - clearly in Andreas’ pay. All I would say is: bear in mind where the Hospitallers were sent, and where Skiouros is now bound. Patience, my friends.

  Cesare Borgia’s flight from Velletri is well documented. Our friends’ involvement in it is not, and nor is the fight in the thunderstorm in Albano, but after Skiouros’ realisation that he might not be able to actually kill Cem, it was important to have him recover, to prove his strength of will to himself. And after a research trip to Albano last year, in which the rain was so torrential that I damn near drowned (!) I felt the urge to make a big show of the scene rather than the somewhat subdued action that was originally chalked in for that place.