He had been beginning to think that he was cursed with regard to ships, and had undertaken their latest voyage with the greatest of trepidation, wondering whether God would choose this time to sink them - sinking was about the only naval horror that had so far passed Skiouros by - or perhaps have them eaten by a giant fish like the 'sheol' of the prophet Jonah. But now they were here, perhaps fifty feet from land - certainly not deep enough water for a man-swallowing fish no matter how angry God might be. And even with his somewhat poor swimming skills - once likened by Lykaion to a blind bear on a spinning top - he could make it ashore if the worst happened here
The young man drifted off into a pleasant reverie filled with images of his youth and the brother he had lost, before the days of the Devsirme and of plots and murders. A minute or two later, the boat hit the gravel and crunched up onto the shore, shaking him from a pleasant image of the village church he had once climbed with his brother - the trigger as it happened of Lykaion's fear of heights. Skiouros lurched from his seat with the sudden thump and almost fell into the bottom of the boat, reaching out and gripping the side to stop himself.
Parmenio thanked the sailors on behalf of the four of them and stepped out of the boat onto the riverbank, reaching up and stretching, then retrieving his bag and wrapped sword. Nicolo followed, and then the other two, and Skiouros felt an unexpected thrill run through him at his return to Christian lands, albeit rabid Catholic ones that probably considered his native church every bit as heretical as the Jews and Arabs.
His boots crunched on the gravel and he smiled as they moved off onto the narrow stretch of grass that separated the river from the huge market. As soon as they were on flat, solid ground and the men of the Repolho had departed to locate the official on the dock, Parmenio stopped and held up his hand for the others to do so.
"I don't know what the plan is from here, gentlemen, but I would heartily recommend that you leave all the talking to me."
"That should not be a problem" Cesare smiled, "given that we do not speak the language."
"And I know this place and its people and how to handle things in a port."
Nicolo nodded his agreement. "He's right."
"Very well" the captain smiled. "We've not truly discussed it before except in the barest and vaguest of ways, but what are the plans from here?"
Skiouros felt the lump rise in his throat. Now that the time was upon him, he found that he could not quite summon up the words to say farewell.
"Perhaps we could think about that in the morning?" he suggested in a hoarse voice. "We're finally here after months of trouble and the possibility of spending a normal evening and night in a Christian inn with a good strong wine and non-dogmatically-authorized foods. Let's just have a night to reward ourselves."
Orsini, who had clearly seen through Skiouros' words to the heart of his difficulty, took pity upon him and smiled. "Yes. Let's have a night to remember."
"You are aware, I presume," Parmenio sighed, "that our entire monetary reserve might just stretch to a crust of bread. Unless you intend to take up brigandage, how are we to pay for our night of debauchery? The sun is already starting to sink to the west and we cannot even afford a room for the night without selling one of our swords. You two young 'uns might be able to sell your arses on the docks for a comfy night, but Nicolo and me wouldn't raise a copper for our efforts." He smiled.
Cesare pursed his lips. "I presume there is a house of the Medici in this place, given its busy mercantile nature?"
"There is. Up near the church, in the main square."
"Then the grand Orsini coffers, filled with the profits of Papal usury and Condotierri murderers, shall pay for our revels and for the grandest rooms Palos can spare."
"That is extraordinarily generous, master Orsini."
"It is the least I can do. And believe me when I say that you could offer to buy the good ship 'cabbage' and it would be little more than a drip in the cistern that is the Orsini's account. My friends, we will live tonight if not like kings, then at least like minor Dukes."
Parmenio grinned and a look passed across Nicolo that Skiouros could read without a translator: 'Drink. Meat. Whores. Comfortable pillow.'
"It is settled, then" Orsini laughed. "Lead us to the Medici house, captain, and we will begin the first evening of our new lives."
And the last of our old, Skiouros added mentally, still filled with a surprisingly powerful sense of loss at the thought of their impending departure.
With a strange sad smile and the sagging frame of a man who has surrendered himself to relaxation after tense weeks on end of privation, Skiouros traipsed off into the market, following the others. As they passed, Nicolo and Parmenio occasionally paused at some stall or other, examining the items on sale, commenting on their value or lack thereof. Orsini occasionally joined in their comments, but regularly threw a worried and sympathetic glance back at the young man at the rear. Skiouros, for his part, trudged along behind, his mind blessedly free of almost all thought. The simple fact that nothing urgent demanded his attention was fresh and relaxing.
It seemed that perhaps half the stalls at most were actual repositories of wares. The rest were stands where merchants could display samples of the goods they had warehoused. Palos must do a vast trade - it was no wonder that it charged exorbitant docking fees and was so beloved of the crown.
"See that idiot?" laughed Parmenio as he waved aside a merchant and stepped on up the gentle incline. "Two pistoles for the whole consignment. How do people like that turn a profit? I couldn't buy such goods in Venezia or Candia for less than four. I could sell it for eight. I'd forgotten how much I like this place. The uncertainty of its proximity to the southern Emirs brings all sorts of desperate and unsavoury types. A man could get rich here, so long as he can afford the port fees."
Skiouros smiled. Given what he knew of Parmenio's struggle to maintain his business in recent years, he had to wonder how many bad investments the captain had made if he could have become rich from the markets of Palos but instead had scrabbled for cheap commissions in Crete.
Orsini, a few steps in front, attacked the thought from another angle.
"You say you could turn a hefty profit?"
"Undoubtedly. If I could guarantee the safety of the ship between here and Venezia or Candia, I could double my investment at the very least with each trip. Probably triple it!"
"And if you were willing to sail longer journeys, you could stay close to the coast around Spain and France, where piracy is all but erased?"
"It would eat into the profit a little, for sure, but it would still be a lucrative run, especially with Nicolo here involved. Guaranteed that if I can spot half a dozen sound investments here, my acute friend has already seen twice that many and mentally ear-marked them."
Cesare smiled.
"Then we will have to see what funds my unwholesome family are willing to extend me as it drips through the grasping claws of the Medici. Perhaps the Isabella should sail again?"
Nicolo narrowed his eyes.
"Never the Isabella." He crossed himself. "Worst luck possible to name a new ship after a sunken one."
"Then perhaps the 'Candia'? It matters not to me. Like the Medici, the Mozzi, the Peruzzi and all the other avaricious nobles of Italia, my family are always open to a sound investment and, while I may not have direct control of the accounts, I have enough sway to accomplish such a transaction, I am sure, given time."
He turned to Skiouros as they laboured up the slope of the hill between the tightly packed market stalls while still addressing those in front.
"I'm sure that whatever business we each have planned can be delayed long enough to secure such a thing, can it not?"
His eyebrows rose and Skiouros shrugged. He had been delayed in his murderous task for two months, pushed in the wrong direction and subjected to seemingly endless deprivation and pain. What might another week matter, especially if it were accompanied by taverns and comfortable beds? Besides, given his imminent vengeance,
he could do with some time to work through ideas with Cesare. Perhaps they might even travel back to Genoa and the Palazzo Visconti with Parmenio and Nicolo if they could secure a ship? It would delay their parting a little longer and save his anguish for a time.
"Good" Cesare announced. "Then let us seek the Medici house. I will draw a small fund for living expenses and then remain to negotiate a larger investment sum while the three of you take our funds, locate a good tavern, a tailor, a cobbler and - most importantly - the bath house. You can then meet me at the nearest tavern to the church."
The four friends smiled as they climbed the hill. The very thought of clean clothes and even cleaner skin was truly appealing - almost as appealing as wine and beef, a pretty tavern girl and a feather pillow. Nicolo was already shaking his hand with his wrist twisting, practicing his dice throwing.
The hill began to level out and the market stalls - which for the last hundred paces or so had been raised on brick piles to keep them level - thinned out as they approached the heavy, featureless rear wall of the huge church, its thick brick buttresses strengthening the apsidal end above the slope.
"The square lies on the far side" announced Parmenio. "There are mercantile guilds and banks around it and in the nearby streets, along with a couple of the palaces of the wealthy and the main approach to the castle. As soon as we…"
Parmenio's sentence dropped off sharply and at the back of the line Skiouros looked up in interest to see what had halted his friend's conversation so suddenly.
His stomach turned over and his heart froze in his chest at the sight of the half dozen Turkish officers who had rounded the church corner from the far side and were face to face with Parmenio across at most thirty paces of roadway.
The older officer with the grey beard Skiouros did not recognise, nor three of the others, two of whom were clearly lower-ranking sailors.
But Etci Hassan and his homunculus…
Skiouros fought the urge to turn and bolt back down the hill. Such a move would be ridiculous. They were in a good Christian town and the Turks were no friends of Spain. Surely they would not be so foolish as to…
"You!" bellowed Hassan in a voice that carried a fury with a keen edge and the weight of generations of jihad. Mehmi, next to him, jumped slightly, a look falling across his face that was a strange mix of disbelief and outright panic.
The senior Turk with the grey beard turned in surprise.
"You know these men, Hassan?"
Parmenio seemed frozen to the spot, uncertain whether to run, shout for help or draw his blade.
"These are the filth that wounded me. Pirates!" Hassan denounced, spitting at them. "They attacked the Yarim Ay and attempted to sink us. We were lucky to make the rendezvous!"
Skiouros blinked at the ridiculous bold-faced lie.
"These sorry creatures challenged you?" the older Turk said with an element of disbelief.
Hassan shoved Mehmi on the shoulder. "I will keep them here. You will go back to the river and rouse the men."
"You will do no such thing!" snapped the old man. Mehmi moved from foot to foot in panic, his eyes rolling like a distressed horse as he struggled with conflicting commands.
"I think it is time for us to depart" muttered Cesare, taking a step sideways towards a gap in the stalls that would lead him around the rear of the church.
Skiouros could not agree more.
The young Greek watched in disbelief as Etci Hassan drew his sword - the musket over his shoulder would take too long to load, but the blade…
"Run!" shouted Orsini from the dubious safety of the market stalls.
The word cut through their indecision and confusion, and a moment later, Parmenio, Nicolo and Skiouros were after him, ducking into the gap between the stalls.
Hassan made to follow, but was surprised to feel a hand clamp down on his shoulder.
"Let go of me" he snarled.
Kemal Reis fixed the lesser captain with his own almost fatherly eyes which carried even now a look of paternal admonishment.
"May I remind you that we are here under the sufferance of the Duke of Medina Sidonia and as guests of the Spanish Crown. We have almost concluded the negotiations for the release of dozens of good men whose very lives are in our hands, and you draw your blade in public? Are you out of your mind, Hassan?"
"I say once more, let go of me or I will take off your hand, you impotent, wizened, Jew-loving old goat!"
All elements of fatherliness were swept from Kemal's gaze with the words and Hassan wrenched himself from his commander's grasp, stepping two paces down the slope and turning, pointing his drawn blade threateningly at the old captain.
At that moment their Spanish escort, who had been only paces behind in the square, some laxity having crept into their duty with the monotony of the task, swept around the corner and realised that their charges - who had been allowed to stray too far ahead for comfort - were bearing arms.
"Halt!" their captain shouted, drawing his own Spanish rapier. The soldiers with him followed suit, some drawing blades, the others levelling their pikes.
Mehmi stared in horror at what was going on around him: his captain, threatening death to a senior captain of the Sultan's navy; the dozen guards drawing and levelling their own weapons to move against them; the great Kemal Reis wearing an unprecedented expression of utter outrage. The diminutive sailor's eyes darted for a second to the market stalls. And, of course, the four cursed ex slaves.
None of them had been wearing priest's robes, but that no longer mattered. He knew them by sight, and he knew that the taciturn one at the rear was the witch himself - the black priest who had almost ruined them all. A rock and a hard place did not come close to describing the situation.
"Mehmi!" barked Hassan. "Come!"
And with that the rogue Turk was descending the hill after his fleeing quarry, his gait made strange and unstable by his limp - an ever present reminder of the men who had defied him.
Behind them, Salih Bin Abdullah was desperately trying to talk down the guards, who were moving towards them threateningly, assuring them in his best Spanish that they meant no harm. "Look! Our blades are sheathed! This man is mad. Let us handle him." Platitudes and pleas that were falling on deaf ears. Three Spaniards grasped the great Kemal and held his arms tight, jerking them behind his back. Along with him, the senior captain's second in command was also restrained. Others moved on to Salih and his companion. The younger of the two remaining captains turned to his second and pointed down the hill after Hassan, hoping the man was up to the task.
"Go, Cingeneler. Stop that lunatic."
Even as guards grabbed Salih's arms and the captain bellowed for more members of the city watch, Salih's second in command nodded and broke into a run, following Hassan and Mehmi into the market stalls.
Kemal, his arms painfully restrained, looked at Salih.
"You warned me time and again, my friend. Sadly, my ears were clogged with misplaced trust. I am so sorry." He looked across at the angry faces of the guards who held him.
"Tell them I submit without hesitation and will do whatever I can to help them take Hassan."
But there was little more that could be done.
It was in the hands of Allah now.
Chapter Twenty One - Of escape and evasion
The stalls went by in a blur of white canvas, crates, baskets, copper pots, sacks of goods and the bronze colour of the late evening sun. Somewhere on the hillside Skiouros had found himself at the front of the fleeing foursome instead of the rear where he had begun, the two sailors built for stamina and strength rather than speed, and hampered a little further by the decade and a half they had on the Greek, and Orsini slowed by his unhealed leg wound.
No one had set a destination for their escape. The simple mechanics of unanticipated flight had taken them directly away from Hassan by the most direct route, which meant straight back downhill away from the church. Indeed, once they were among the stalls and running, it had occurred to S
kiouros that perhaps matters could have been resolved with the aid of the old captain and without the need to flee, but the fact remained that it was too late now. They had run. And Skiouros knew full well that Hassan the Butcher would not have let them live, no matter his position, so perhaps it had been for the best.
Rounding a corner, Skiouros narrowly avoided collision with a stall owner carrying an armful of baskets. Apologizing pointlessly in a language the man would be unlikely to comprehend, Skiouros scooted past him, ducked around another stall, and emerged, surprised, at the riverbank.
As the other three slowly arrived behind him Skiouros looked this way and that, his head cocked and his ears picking out what detail he could from the overall din. A decade of surviving on his wits in the world's greatest city had given him a keen sense of hearing, particularly in relation to the chase and evasion.
Three Turkish voices emerged as threads from the tapestry of sound that was Palos in its last flurry of the day's activity. One: Etci Hassan, bellowing orders to his lessers; and not just Mehmi, from the phrases - cut them off… secure the dock… do not let them escape. The second voice was Mehmi. Skiouros knew those oily tones well enough. Mehmi sounded unhappy, but was relaying his commander's orders to some unseen group - presumably the crewmen he had mentioned by the river. The third voice was an unknown, but clearly not the target of Hassan's commands, given that his own bellowed words were orders for Hassan to cease his chase. It occurred to Skiouros once again that with some sort of division among the Turks, they might not need to have fled if they could only determine who might be friendly. But now there was no hope. Even though it seemed they might have friendlies among the Turks, there simply was not time to unweave that tapestry and determine which threads went against the warp. If the past two months had taught them anything it was not to underestimate Etci Hassan Reis.
"Where now?" Cesare asked as he lurched out from the market, his bad leg shaking with the effort of the run. He was coping well with the flight, but Skiouros could see the effort he was expending simply to stay upright on that weak leg. There was not a lot more run left in him.
Priest's Tale Page 27