by Gwynn White
“The lady’s husband is in the city. She wishes to reunite with him.”
“No docking allowed, sailor. Go back the way you came,” the guard retorted with terse vexation.
“I plan to return to my ship after the signora disembarks.”
The guard trained his piercing stare upon her. She did not look away. She stood in the boat and held out her hand to him in a show of peace.
When he caught full sight of Petra as she lowered her hood, his surprise at her beauty left him momentarily speechless. She didn’t have time for such foolishness. She waved him forward, not taking no for an answer.
The guard frowned but moved to assist her. “You may disembark momentarily, Signora.”
Once the guard had helped her out of the lighter, she turned to Piero. “I thank you kindly, Signore, for your assistance. And if I may tell you something before you go…”
Piero leaned over the paddles and waited.
“Don’t look for your Agata in the sea. Her stone has already descended far into the deep, and she is finally at peace. You will be a captain one day. Do everything you must to keep your eye on your rising dawn in that distant horizon.”
Piero nodded and crossed himself. “May God be merciful and help you find your husband, Signora.”
She bowed her head toward him in thanks. And then she turned toward Kaffa and war.
22
The Horde
Kaffa, Crimea
August 13, 1346
Now what do we do with you?” the Kaffan guard said, a mix of amusement, annoyance, and lust in his voice.
“Would you escort me to my husband?” Petra asked.
All the guards laughed at her.
“The people here call him the Immortal.”
The guards sobered immediately.
“You know of him, then?” she ventured, realizing they actually feared this man. Certainly, if they had seen Lucius in the flesh, he would seem otherworldly and intimidating. In the fading light of dusk, she saw the glimmer of suspicion light their eyes. For the briefest of moments, she faced the guard without knowing how to proceed. Then she stood up a little taller and put on her most genuine smile.
“How thoughtless of me. You are duty-bound to guard the docks. I will go myself. Will you direct me toward the safest route?” She had already noticed there were multiple paths up the hill.
“Why have you come here, woman? We’ve a battle underway. The Great Mortality has claimed countless lives in the city of Kaffa. To go this way, Signora, is to court death.”
“You speak of the Pestilence coming down from the Golden Horde?”
Another guard nodded, as the first guard looked at her incredulously. “You knew of it, and still you came? I ask again, woman: why have you come here?”
Petra looked in his eyes and judged him to be a decent man. “In truth, I do seek my husband. He is overdue to return home. I heard merchants in Genoa talk of a man who seemed to be untouched by pain. He is like such a one. I came because I heard of the Pestilence, and I heard of the siege. I wanted to tend my husband if he had taken ill.”
“You were a fool to come. Your husband is likely already dead. And I would be a fool to let you in. Save yourself, woman. Go up into the hills east of the city. There you can wait until either war or death takes Kaffa.”
“Signore, I beg you to reconsider—”
“Be gone with you before I run you through myself, Signora. I don’t suffer liars or fools.”
Petra stood for a moment longer, wondering if she could take all four guards on the dock before they stuck a sword in her belly. But if they killed her, she’d be thrown in with the dead corpses within the citadel. All well and good until they burned the bodies. If she did not wake in time… It seemed unlikely to her that even she could withstand a death by fire, and she’d rather not find out on this night.
“I would thank you, Signore, but you have been most unhelpful.”
He touched his sword hilt and waved her away as though she were a pesky insect.
Petra stared up at the hill above them and chose a circuitous path to begin her trek west of the walled city. She passed many on her way up from the docks. She kept her face fully covered, and though her fine clothing likely hinted she was of some importance, no one accosted her. Those who shuffled past her were all unwashed men smelling of death. Their faces spoke of profound exhaustion and despair. The battle must have gone on for many long months. She had seen those expressions before, on men whose fear of battle had faded into an acceptance and desire for death. Did Lucius wear that same expression somewhere within the citadel? How would she ever find him amid the thousands of grime-smeared faces in Kaffa?
She hurried up the path, and when she was level with the main city’s outer wall, she finally glimpsed the immensity of the Tatar-Mongol army out beyond the makeshift neighborhoods outside the fortress walls. The light of the day was almost gone, but she was able to make out a Mongol encampment of thousands at the outskirts of the city’s outer wall and reaching all the way up into the northwestern hills.
The dark of the sky pouring over the grasslands surrounding the encampment and fires burning among the city’s fortified towers gave more of a sense of oppression than the bodies of the dead scattered across the landscape. She had seen the face of war before, but she had never stood between two armies, hoping to breach the walls of a city that did not want her.
Lightweight siege machines—mostly what appeared to be a smaller form of the trebuchets and catapults she was used to seeing in France and England—stood at the front lines. Ballista also stood at the ready just out of firing range of Kaffa’s outer defenses. The walls were blackened and broken from the Tatar-Mongols’ offensive, but they seemed to have held fast against a breech.
Petra saw no immediate way to avoid at least the outskirts of the Mongol army on her way toward the nearest city gate. So as she watched the army slowly prepare for another assault on Kaffa, she formulated a plan. She would have to act quickly. Spying a massive pile of abandoned Mongol corpses not far from where she stood, Petra hurried toward them, the stench overwhelming her even from this distance.
Once she made her way across the rock-strewn, grassy hill, she covered her mouth and nose as she searched for a fresher body among the corpses. She found one on the south side of the pile. He lay in the mud at the foot of the tower of death and still had freshly drying blood stuck to his hair from a head wound, but his soldier’s uniform looked mostly untainted. As several rats ran by her feet, no doubt ready to feast on this endless supply of corpses, she worked quickly to unclasp his cloak and roll him over to release it from his stiffening body. She was as careful as she was quick. The last thing she wanted was to have the mountain of bodies to topple over and bury her.
A moan escaped from the pile. She jumped to her feet, dropping the cloak into the river of blood at her feet. A morbid curiosity took her to the opposite side where a man lay near the bottom. Though yet alive, she knew he was not long for the world. The Pestilence had eaten through his blackened fingers and his neck was swollen with egg-shaped protuberances. He reached out to her, his eyes a mix of sheer terror and pain. Though she was fluent in eight languages, he spoke in a language foreign to her. But she didn’t need to know. He was asking for help. She had none to give, save a swift, merciful death.
“It will be over soon, warrior,” she whispered. “Dream now of riding horseback in the Land of Endless Blue Sky, and it will be so.” And then she held her hand over the crown of his bare head and drew his life. She was quick and she was sure, and she felt at once both the weakness of his disease-ridden body and the power of his strong, clear mind. Before he died, she caught a glimpse of the dream she had given him, and she felt herself riding bareback on a long-maned Mongolian horse in the summer sun, the green grasses beneath her horse’s hooves a stark contrast to the white-cragged blue mountains surrounding a peaceful valley. Then the momentary image of paradise faded into the darkness of putrid death, and her whole body shook with di
sgust. But she kept to her feet and moved back to pick up the cloak that had fallen in the mire.
She heard voices as a group of men approached. She made her way around the back side of the wall of corpses, and having cloaked herself with the dead warrior’s clothing, she walked sure-footed across the plain. No shouts of alarm greeted her, so she moved toward the outskirts of the encampment, hoping to avoid the stares of both the living and the dead.
As she strode through the deserted, blood-soaked neighborhoods outside the city between the Mongol horde and the Kaffan defenders, she questioned her own sanity. What was she doing here? How had her worries taken her so far from home? Lucius was likely not in Kaffa, and yet she could not stop her feet from moving into one of the most dangerous places she could possibly be. While she no longer believed in the old gods and goddesses of her Roman youth, neither did she hold with the new God either. But she had been around long enough to know there was no such a thing as coincidence. She knew there must be a reason she found herself in this godforsaken land, and she would follow where her heart led, consequences be damned.
A man shouted at her in the Mongols’ strange language. When she turned, a small group of well-armed Mongol warriors approached from a muddied side path between houses, some who held scimitars at the ready and others who stood with bows drawn. One held up a lantern, so they could see her face.
Petra didn’t want to know what those arrows would feel like pummeling her chest, so she held up her hands in surrender. They simultaneously shouted at her and talked among themselves. The dirt and blood covering every inch of visible skin as well as the buboes on their necks told her they must be suffering from the Pestilence, but the fierce look in their determined eyes reminded her why she had never wanted to come face-to-face with the Tatar-Mongol race.
She wished she had thought to pull her knife from the sheath secured to her thigh, but it was too late to reach for it now. In order to use her only defense, she would have to get closer, so she took a step in their direction, keeping her hands up and visible. Confusion marked their expressions and their voices grew louder, but they did not halt her approach.
Knowing her accent would instantly give her away, Petra said nothing. She decided, then, to play the part of a priestess on a mission. She swept her hands around at the vast army, and then lifted her arms to the sky as she continued to move toward them. They lowered their weapons slightly, as they tried to understand her gestures. Soon, she stood facing the man who appeared to be the leader.
Over his blue woolen undergarments he was covered in a protective shield of lacquered leather armor from helmet to gauntlets. He had a battle axe tucked into his belt, and he held his scimitar blade aloft, ready to strike.
She gestured toward the nearest siege machine, one of the Mongolian-style trebuchets she had noticed earlier. She gestured slowly, making the motion of flinging something over the wall with the trebuchet. She was merely trying to confuse them and give herself more time to formulate a plan. Then it hit her. These men were not educated in European ways. They knew war and power and little else. They had never seen magic. And that was how an Essentian draw would appear to them. She knew it was a risk. They would either shoot her full of arrows or back away in awe. Her chances weren’t great either way.
The leader grabbed hold of the dead soldier’s cloak around her shoulders and studied the fabric. He seemed to be angry to find a foreign woman wearing a Mongol warrior’s clothing. Then he pulled down the hood of her own cloak. Her hair spilled down and the scarf covering her face fell away. They all gasped. Likely it was her immortal skin and eyes, which, in the lantern light, would appear to be glowing with eternal youth. As the leader stepped back, Petra boldly stepped forward, matching him pace for pace. With a swipe of her hand toward his chest, she began an Essentian draw of his heart.
All the men began to back up and shout, but they did not move to take her down. The leader’s face moved from sudden shock to what she had hoped for: pleasure. Though she was deep within the throes of the draw herself, she forced herself to look at the other men, catching their horrified stares one by one until she knew all of them had succumbed to her show of power. And she was powerful. She now had the mental acuity of the man she had already drawn from and this man before her, who, despite his haggard appearance, was still strong as well as strong-willed.
She felt as though she could conquer their whole army with the flick of her wrist, but even as she felt the man’s life diminishing, she knew it was a foolish thought. For a moment, she considered letting him live but decided it would be too cruel. She already knew he was beginning to experience the effects of the Pestilence. She saw it in the ashen pallor of his skin. When she felt him die, Petra caught his heavy body in her arms and gently laid him in the mud at her feet. Then she made a random sign with her hands over his body, as if blessing him, and then bowed to the men, not knowing what else to do.
They showed expressions ranging from shock to horror to reverence. She gestured that she would walk to the city gate, and they did not stop her. For a few steps, she faced them as she backed away, and when they did not approach her or raise their weapons again, she finally risked turning toward the city. For a thousand agonizing steps, she made her way across the dead zone between the camp and Kaffa’s outer wall, believing that at any moment, she would feel an arrow slam into her back, but the Mongols did not pursue her. Perhaps they thought her their champion come to destroy the Genoese of Kaffa. Would the city let her in? She would soon find out.
23
The Immortal
August 13, 1346
Halt!”
Petra froze mid-step. She had kept her eyes on the towers on her long walk to Kaffa, and no one had appeared to shoot her dead. But suddenly there were dozens of bowmen pointing their arrows down at her. And, even now, she heard the cacophony of the Mongol army mobilizing behind her. Their voices grew louder and the din of their siege machines creaked against the coolness of the night.
“I am a citizen of Genoa,” she shouted up at them. “I seek a man the Kaffans call the Immortal. Please let me enter.”
“You wear the cloak of a Mongol warrior, woman,” a young, thin man called down from the top of the wall. He seemed to be fairly healthy and his voice was clear.
“If you will allow me to remove the cloak, I will show you I wear the fabrics of a true Genoese. I wore this Mongol cloak to ensure safe passage through the Horde.”
“Permitted. Hold your fire, men!” he called across to his fellow bowmen. They lowered their arrows while she flung off the putrid cloak. She even tossed aside her own black cloak despite the chill seeping into her skin from the cold winds that had whipped up.
“A true Genoese citizen respectfully requests permission to enter the Great City of Kaffa.”
“Why do you search for the Immortal, Signora?” he asked. “What business have you here?”
“I am his sister,” she blurted out. “I wish to reunite with my brother.”
The man hesitated, deliberating.
“Do you not understand we suffer the Great Pestilence here in Kaffa?”
“I am aware, but I am immune to this illness.” He stared at her in obvious surprise. He stroked his straggly beard a moment longer, and then nodded.
“Guards, raise the portcullis!”
“Thank you, Signore,” Petra said, with a deep bow of thanks. “The Mongols are preparing to launch a new attack. Make ready!”
A few moments passed. Petra breathed out the breath she had been holding and relaxed her white-knuckled fists. The massive iron-woven portcullis heaved up with a powerful groan. The moment she could duck under the gate, Petra slipped through and found herself in a wasteland of death and decimation.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. The mangled and rotting corpses of both Tatar-Mongols and Kaffan guards lay everywhere, reminding her in hideous detail of the day she had walked through the courtyard of Clarius’s villa littered with the bodies of slaves. Not even the bil
lows of acrid smoke from dying fires could penetrate the stench of the dead in the broken city of Kaffa.
The area inside the portcullis was deserted, save for the few men manning the gate. The majority of the forward defenders were either lining the massive walls, resting amid the gutted houses, or sitting in the narrow city streets, waiting for fire or death. They looked no better than the gutter rats scurrying past them. The colors of what she knew were once fine uniforms were now the color of mud. Some of them moaned or screamed from injuries. Others she knew had already contracted the Pestilence and were starting their slow decline into the oblivion of death.
She wondered briefly whether the Mongols had climbed the walls or had somehow breeched the gate. The dead gave no answer, so she hurried on toward the maze of narrow streets beneath the watchful eyes of the tower guards above her.
Thousands of closely built houses cluttered the land between the outer wall and the inner citadel of Kaffa. Many of them were still on fire from the last Mongol attack. Others poured plumes of black smoke from previous onslaughts.
She slowed her pace as the oppression and disillusionment of the men seemed to infect her own spirits. She stopped near a group of them and addressed a man who seemed less ill than the others.
“Pardon me, Signore. I seek the man they call the Immortal. Do you know where I might find him?”
At first he stared at her as though he were dying of thirst and she was the only cool cup of water in the city. She figured he probably hadn't seen someone so healthy and clean in months.
He finally shook his head. “The rain of Pestilence is coming, Madame,” he said in French. “Seek shelter before they kill you where you stand.”
Petra glanced back toward the gate, but there were no arrows falling from the sky. Then she realized that by the time she heard or saw them, it would be too late.