by Aidan Harte
‘Who is to be blamed for the murders?’
‘Arik, of course,’ he said, as though the question was naïve. ‘In Akka, Catrina decides who’s Sicarii. Considering Arik’s brother is their leader, it’ll be easy enough to convince the people that he was a sleeper.’
‘But why?’
‘Because you were right. She wants war. Any rapprochement weakens her rule. The baron’s murder will cow the nobles and inflame the devout, but Levi’s is intended to prove that the Sicarii will drive Oltremare to war with Etruria. Akka flatters itself that exiles can always find succour here, so this is a good way to get rid of you without looking heartless. She doesn’t trust Concord, but handing you over will buy her time to prepare a fleet large enough to persuade them not to invade.’
‘The First Apprentice doesn’t want Akka. He wants me.’
‘She doesn’t believe that.’
‘You can turn around now.’
He studied her critically, then adjusted her headdress. ‘It’ll do. It’ll have to.’
*
Levi crouched behind Arik as they made their way through the empty corridors of the floor below to the battlements. ‘Fulk won’t be able to get Sofia out,’ said Arik, ‘not unless we create a distraction.’
They reached a doorway and together poked their heads out into the chill night air. Akka slept and there were few sounds: the wind’s whisper, the plaintive cry of a night-fox from the Sands, the rhythmic gush of the filthy waves breaking upon the walls, the sound of half a dozen sleepy sentries occasionally stamping their feet to keep warm. The courtyard gate was being raised for Basilius and his men returning from their murderous expedition to the Merchants’ Quarter.
‘Can you swim?’
‘Before I answer that, tell me you’re not thinking of—’
A gong was struck, and as its sonorous echo died out, the blush of torches smeared the courtyard below. The wings of the palace lit up and the night’s hush was ripped aside by shouts and a sourceless locust-hum as the clackers of Akka’s churches spread the alarm.
‘The baron’s body’s been discovered,’ said Levi.
‘Then what are we waiting for?’
The sentries’ attention was on the streets below; the last thing they expected was a sword-wielding marauder charging them from inside the palace. Levi didn’t try to fight them – the longer he was exposed, the greater the danger – but instead he shouldered them aside and swept by in a mad dash.
‘He means to jump!’ Arik roared from the point Levi had set out, and the Lazars in the courtyard below started raising ladders, trying to head Levi off. He stopped to tip them over, but Basilius waited for him to pass before raising his own ladder. Getting close to the sea, Levi cast his sword and helmet aside.
‘Quick, Seneschal, throw!’ Arik cried.
Thanks to quick reactions and considerable luck, Levi managed to duck the hurled axe.
Basilius cursed the Grand Master’s pet Ebionite for a loud-mouthed fool and took a second axe from one of the unconscious Lazars. He calmly watched Levi weaving left to right, working out where he would be in a second’s time.
Levi took the final few steps, held his breath and prepared to launch himself into space – just as Basilius released the axe. There was no pain, but Levi felt his legs and arms go dead as he dropped towards the scum-skinned sea and a darkness deeper than any he had ever thought possible.
*
Word travelled fast in Akka. The vessels belonging to the late Baron Masoir were already flying black flags – though his wife ensured that they continued to go about their business. The xebecs, Oltremare’s native ships, were strange mongrels: a crossing of Ariminumese galleys, Byzantine dromons and the dhows of the old Radinate. With their lateen rigs and jibs projecting like antennae they resembled a horde of locusts spawned from the oily water, vibrating hungrily, waiting to take wing.
Levi smelled of death – but not because of his wound, though it looked ugly enough. The stench was due entirely to his dip in the Lordemare. Arik had fished him out of the filth and now sat on the side of the dock wringing out his own shirt. He looked and smelled no better.
Seneschal Basilius and the patriarch stood behind the Grand Master and the queen, looking down upon their strange catch. Levi dearly wished to ask Fulk if the Contessa had got away, but it was crucial that he play his part to the end. He tried to sound unruffled. ‘Killing me will be a grave insult to the League.’
‘Merely grave? I shall try to be more imaginative.’ The queen was plainly furious. ‘Your League has nothing to offer me. Where has the Contessa gone? You obviously helped her plan her escape.’
‘I assumed I’d be captured, so I made sure I didn’t know.’
‘How very clever. Perhaps I’ll torture you just for fun.’ The queen turned to Chrysoberges. ‘What say you, your Beatitude? What sentence is fitting for a mercenary who comes to disrupt my kingdom’s peace?’
After Baron Masoir’s assassination, the patriarch was eager to demonstrate his loyalty. ‘Schismatics should be themselves parted’ – he ripped his vestments, in passion or perhaps merely to illustrate his words – ‘for he who divides his own kind—’
‘But he’s not your kind,’ Arik interrupted.
Levi stared, numbed by this betrayal of confidence, but Arik did not meet his eye. Instead he risked a warning glance to Fulk before continuing, ‘He’s Ebionite, Majesty, by blood at least.’
‘You know this – how?’
‘He confessed to me that his mother was a slave. He even boasted how he had passed himself off as a Marian for years. It was my people he first betrayed. I should have let him drown.’
‘Jackal!’ Levi cried. He attempted to rise, but Fulk silenced him with a mailed fist. Levi fell back, nose and lip weeping blood.
‘Then we are both wronged,’ said Catrina. ‘For your years of service, I give you the honour of sentencing him.’
‘Most gracious,’ said Arik with a bow. ‘The punishment ought to fit the crime. He was born a slave, so put him to the oar and let him die one.’
‘A judgement worthy of Solomon,’ the queen said.
When the prisoner began to struggle, Fulk said, ‘Obviously the first one didn’t take. Care to try, Seneschal?’
Levi’s blood struck the ground, and his head a moment after.
‘Basilius!’ the queen chided. ‘He’ll never fetch a good price looking like tenderised beef.’
‘Don’t worry, Majesty,’ said Fulk carelessly. ‘I’ll see that he looks presentable when the time comes.’
‘Very good,’ she said. ‘And now, Arik ben Uriah, what punishment would fit your own crime?’
‘—Majesty?’
‘Don’t take me for a fool. You’ve been mooning over the girl for the last few months. I know you’re behind this.’
‘I will not deny it,’ Arik said before Fulk could intervene. ‘The Contessa asked for my aid when I first met her – I, who brought her to Akka. I am responsible.’
‘There’s more than that.’
‘You mean to start war amongst the tribes. While I was helping you to defend innocent merchants from bandits, I could convince myself I was not betraying my people. At last I must choose.’ He held up his head proudly so that she could see the martyr sincerity in his gleaming eyes and be persuaded.
It worked. ‘Until this day you’ve served us loyally. Though it’s more than you deserve, I will give you a soldier’s death, Be so good, Grand Master.’
Fulk began to protest, but Arik stopped him. ‘I’ve done my duty. Do yours swifly, my brother, and we shall see each other again, be’ezrat HaShem.’
‘Seneschal?’ said Fulk, holding out his hand, and Arik bowed his neck as the shadow of the axe blocked out the morning sun.
*
Levi opened his swollen eyes to see an Ebionite boy holding a pair of wool clippers staring at him. ‘All of it?’ the boy said again.
‘The lot,’ said Fulk. ‘He won’t sell with hair.’
/>
As the boy drew close, Levi flinched, but the chain around his neck pulled him up short. His hands were manacled, so he raised a foot to try to defend himself.
Fulk caught it mid-air. ‘Relax. You need to be gone from Akka before the queen changes her mind.’
‘If Arik thought he was doing me a favour, he was wrong. I swore to protect Sofia—’
‘And she has few friends left. Arik’s dead, Levi. You getting killed too won’t help the Contessa.’
‘Then why are you selling me as a slave? I know these dogs – they’ll just chain me to a rowing station and work me to death—’
‘—and feed your body to Leviathan. Yes, most likely, but there were few other options. The captain I’m selling you to is a Syracusan dog. Arik said you were raised in the Scillies.’
‘So?’
‘So I expect that you can speak the dialect. I know you can pick a lock. You have a gift for persuasion, though it availed you little here – my mother’s court is not, alas, a reasonable place.’ Fulk unpinned something from his mantel: a needle with a kink at one end and a small hook at the other. ‘Hide this on your person – not under your tongue; they will examine your teeth and make you talk.’
‘I’ll think of somewhere.’ He bowed his head, and told the boy to cut. ‘See her to safety, Fulk, or Arik will have died for naught.’
‘I know it, Brother.’
CHAPTER 4
The foothills of the ancient city of Veii shimmered in the silver light reflected from the Albula. The Rasenneisi engineers – Pedro Vanzetti and seven of his best – fixed their gaze on the majestically swollen flags snapping at the summit and began the arduous climb. The spectacle was spoiled when they came close enough to see the slain she-wolf depicted upon those yellow flags. It might have been a thousand years ago, but Veii’s pride in conquering Rome remained undiminished. It was, according to most Etrurians, their last pride-worthy achievement.
The Rasenneisi were dressed sombrely in coarse grey cloaks worn over sleeveless multi-pocketed work jackets. Long hoods draped round neck and over chins, emulating their maestro. Pedro’s resemblance to his father was strong now. The runt of yesteryear was completely gone, replaced by a youth with broadening shoulders and a tested strength behind his dark brown eyes.
As the gate was hauled open, Pedro rehearsed under his breath, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He tried again: ‘My deepest condolences.’ He considered afresh the wisdom of accepting Duke Grimani’s invitation. When last year’s summit broke down in Ariminum, the Veian ambassador – a cur who also happened to be the duke’s son – had attempted to kidnap him – and he’d only escaped with the help of Doctor Ferruccio, the Salernitan ambassador. Yet here he was, putting his head into the noose again. But it was a necessary risk, for war, though long delayed, was upon them at last.
It was not Duke Grimani waiting to welcome him but the last man Pedro had expected to see in Veii.
‘Doctor?’
When a Salernitan attains the age of two score and ten years, he is obliged to become an adult, leaving behind the rootless lifestyle of the butteri to pursue the life of the mind. Ferruccio, Count of Salerno, had been a doctor for decades now, but he had never quite abandoned the habits of his youth. Beneath his star-fretted blue cape he wore a faded mantle, and he carried his mazza still, though these days he used it to help him walk instead of herding buffalo. His hoary white moustache was styled in the buttero manner too, kept thick enough to protect from the dust of the trail, and swooping like the horns of their herds. All that was missing was the wolf-skin cap.
The old warrior pulled him into an embrace. ‘Good to see you again, lad. I worried you had perished with the rest of the bandieratori.’ He looked over Pedro’s team of engineers, none much older than their maestro. ‘Are these all who survived?’
‘No, there are more back in Rasenna – but it was bad. We ought to have been more careful in our choice of podesta. Geta would never have been elected if the Contessa had been around.’
Ferruccio anticipated his next question. ‘You’ll be interested to know that shortly after the Tancred got off, it was escorted back to Ariminum by the San Barabaso—’ Seeing Pedro’s reaction, Ferruccio rested his hand on his shoulder. ‘Tranquillo, lad. Your friends weren’t on it. Whether they made it to Oltremare, I don’t know yet, but I’m making enquiries. I have some friends in Taranto who trade with the Akkans.’
It turned out Ferruccio was here for the same reason as Pedro: to lend his expertise to the defence of Veii.
‘Droll, isn’t it? The Concordians have made for us the alliance we failed to create ourselves a year ago. Let’s go and see the duke, shall we?’ He winked. ‘Don’t forget to give him your condolences.’
*
Castello Grimani topped the hill that overlooked the other five; it was in every sense the peak of Veii. The duke’s personal crest flew from its turrets and balconies: the Argus eyes of the peacock tail reminded the duke’s subjects that his spies were everywhere. Deep within those walls, hidden away from the sun, was the ducal court. An army of fat candles tried in vain to hold back the gloom, barely illuminating the sullen, hollow-eyed busts in the niches that lined the windowless hall.
At the top of a small set of steps sat the current head of the Grimani family. The duke had once been delicately handsome; now, fat-padded and wrinkle-scarred as he was, he looked like a petulant dowager. He gestured to the long table at the bottom of the steps. ‘You’ve come a long way, Maestro. Would you eat?’
‘Thank you, Duke. I would prefer to survey the walls first.’
‘My dear son was like you, full of vigour. The young are ever in a hurry.’
When Pedro attempted to offer his sympathies, the duke hushed him. ‘Do not speak of my suffering, dear boy. I know Rasenna too has suffered at the hands of this usurper.’
‘We’ll win back control eventually,’ said Pedro, ‘but the loss of our city means the Concordians have no reason to delay. They’ll soon be here.’
Ferruccio helped himself to some rabbit stew and a glass of wine while the duke led Pedro around the throne room, a limp, liver-spotted hand resting upon his shoulder like a dead fish.
‘Don’t worry,’ Grimani said airily, ‘when the time comes, Concordians always negotiate.’
‘If you are so sanguine,’ Ferruccio interrupted, ‘why did you send an ambassador to the summit at Ariminum?’
Pedro felt his face redden and he stared at his feet, hardly believing that Ferruccio was bringing up that subject.
The duke’s snarling reaction showed that however calm his outward appearance, he was nonetheless capable of passion. ‘I sent him to ensure there was at least one voice of Reason present! And my reward for being a good neighbour? To have my innocent son murdered in a sordid bridge brawl, and to win the enmity of the Concordians!’ He looked disdainfully at Ferruccio, who was holding a haunch of meat in his fingers as he tore at it with his teeth. ‘I can understand why Rasenna and Ariminum are intent on dragging the rest of us into this northern war – they need allies. But why you Salernitans wish to be involved is beyond me. Barbarians love fighting, I suppose.’ He composed himself and gestured around at the tapestries that lined the room.Weaves with colours fresh as frescoes depicted horse herds running free over Arcadian pastures, stuffed horns of plenty, and coy goddesses, voluptuous and nude. ‘Well, my people love peace. We have our city, our islands and our horses. The God of War is unwelcome here.’
‘Come, Maestro Vanzetti,’ said Ferruccio with barely concealed contempt. ‘My appetite fails me. Let’s see about defending these lambs.’
*
Pedro’s quick survey gave reason to hope that Veii might be adequately fortified, and Doctor Ferruccio agreed; he might not be cognisant of the latest in siege-craft – although he was curious about the latest advances – but anyone who had been a buttero had sound instincts for territory. The Albula snaked around the southern half of the city like a moat, then broadened until she merged easefully i
nto the Tyrrhenian Sea. They followed its course to the coast where fat, quarrelsome seagulls floated on the cool breeze and great waves smashed pointlessly against the cliffs. The doctor said the heavy rains that had swollen the Albula augured a tough winter – butteri knew such things, but the doctor had a solid grounding in Euclidian geometry too. They talked about the Contessa as they walked, and the doctor described the headstrong girl she had been growing up, and how like her grandfather.
‘That’s a handsome bay. I don’t understand why they neglect it so.’ The memory of Ariminum’s arsenal was fresh in Pedro’s mind.
The doctor spat over the cliff. ‘They wouldn’t know what to do with a navy if they had it. They don’t have the guile to trade or the guts to raid.’ He grinned. ‘I know what you’re thinking, lad: “Of course a Salernitan would say that!” – but I don’t say the Veians started out worthless; they’ve spent a lot of time and effort degrading themselves. Before the Grimani took charge, Veii aspired to be a maritime power like Ariminum and she chased business in every port of the Middle Sea from Byzant to Akka. The monarchy had been slumbering on the throne for centuries and was too indolent to interfere in its citizens’ enterprises – which is the best that can be said for any government.’
Pedro smiled tolerantly. The doctor, like all Salernitans, was jealous of his liberty to a ridiculous degree ‘So what changed?’
‘One of the duke’s ancestors convinced the king to grant him a monopoly on the Cagligarian Isles trade, but he quickly got bored with haggling with the Cagligarians and decided it would be easier to conquer the island, enslave the natives and mine its iron and alum intensively. Nobody objected – Concord’s hunger for iron is boundless, and every town with any sort of textile industry requires alum.’
Pedro wasn’t smiling any more. Rasenna was one of the latter.