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  “That may have been more luck than judgment,” said Benito.

  “Or divine intervention,” said the Old Fox, smiling wryly.

  ***

  Benito and the fleet were able to sail, much to the shock and surprise both of the people of Corfu, and the ship-crews, two days later, to meet the fleet of Genoa and a token five ships from Aragon, sailing for Corfu.

  He had had news from the tritons of a huge storm.

  Venice

  The addition into his household of a lively inquisitive toddler, was a not-unmixed joy, Marco found. It was true, that she had an infectious laugh and craved being cuddled, it was true she was not what you would call anything like “naughty.” She was tender-hearted to a fault, and had cried so much over a dead bird found on the balcony that they now let her feed the birds from there. Her giggles rang through the halls, and made even the grimmest servant smile.

  As for Kat, well, Kat adored the child. And at first it had been hard to get her to part from the little girl. But now that she had settled in, well, her presence was also not an unmixed blessing. ‘Lessi liked being with him most, Kat second most, and if possible, both of them. She was often found glued to their sides. Yet she was perfectly capable of vanishing the minute he turned his head.

  And she was into everything. “Like a monkey,” one of the servants had sighed, and Marco was inclined to agree. She could not see a drawer or a cupboard without wanting to open it, and if possible, play with what was inside. How she managed to do that, as little as she was—at least once, he’d found that she had patiently pulled out all the (now emptied) drawers beneath the one that was out of reach, and used them as a sort of staircase to get to the one they had fondly thought was safe. He was strongly considering finding a way to tie drawers and cupboards shut. As much of a nuisance as it would be if someone wanted something, the consequences of her getting hold of something that could harm her were not to be thought about.

  And everything went into her mouth, which was the other problem with her constant rummaging. Books too! So far she hadn’t actually ruined anything but there were a few leather-bound volumes that now had gummy corners.

  Then there were mornings. Ah yes, the mornings. She got up very early and her idea of a good time was to slip out of her nursery and creep into their bed. Squirm in between them, and giggle. And wiggle. And twist and turn and pat her hands on them and sing to herself. And her little feet were never still. She was as restless a child as her father was as an adult.

  It was hard to grasp just how the addition of one very small person could add so much extra effort to life at the Casa Montescue, but certainly the servants seemed to have twice as much work now, and he and Kat half as much time.

  And yet…and yet… No one could bring themselves to actually complain, not when she would come up to you and tug at your sleeve and when you looked down at her, she would put up her arms and lisp, “Tiss?” She was very good at bringing all of them—from Lodovico to the scullery maids, around her very small thumb.

  But something had to be done, and Marco knew it. Rescue came at last from an unexpected quarter. Marco had forgotten the priest from Cannaregio, and his promise to look for some form of genteel employment for the woman who had lost her daughter. When Old Pietro came to his study—where Alessia was attempting to open drawers, many of which had surgical implements in them—and told him Father Gotaro begged for an audience, and had a woman accompanying him, he felt very guilty indeed.

  ‘Lessi of course did not let him go alone. They went to the small drawing room off the main hall, where Pietro had put the visitors to wait—It was raining outside, he could scarcely have left them on the step, he later explained. Marco set his niece down, opened the door and she toddled in.

  The priest bowed…but not the woman. The woman instead squatted down, ignoring Marco, her face transformed, tortured lines eased—hands outstretched to Alessia—who, being the child she was, trotted cheerfully up to her.

  “Ah. M’Lord.” The priest bowed again. “What a lovely child. I just wanted to press the matter,” he jerked his head slightly at the woman entranced with Alessia. She was smiling, looking like a different person. “It…does her so much good to be with the little ones. She’s hard to get to eat properly. But local mothers…” he shrugged. “I suppose they blame her.”

  Marco could understand that, even if it wasn’t logical. He could also understand just how easily a toddler could disappear into the canal. Of course not here in the Casa Montescue—the door-handles were out of reach, and there were servants about to find and watch. But…

  And that was when he put two and two together and realized that this was the answer to both problems. They could use some help with Alessia. This woman wouldn’t be alone, and the priest was right, she clearly adored children and was good with them. The priest vouched for her. With all the servants here, he could simply tell them that rather than interrupting their own work to be running after the child, all they needed to do was to keep a discreet eye on ‘Lessia and her nursemaid, just in case something was needed. It would do the woman a great deal of good. And it would assuage his conscience.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, actually, Father, I hadn’t actually found anyone yet—but as you see, we’ve acquired our little niece temporarily. It occurs to me that we could give her a trial with Alessia. It would be a temporary thing—until my brother and sister-in-law get back. I’ll talk to Katerina about it, this instant.”

  Before the priest could thank him, he got Pietro to go and find Kat.

  Kat was less-than-sure, when they spoke in the hall. “I mean, Marco…we don’t know her at all.”

  “We could try it out for a day or two. Alessia’s interests must come first of course. Just mornings. They will stay inside the Casa. There are always servants too—and us.” It was obvious—at least to him that they were going to have to do something of the sort. They hadn’t had enough hours in the day before ‘Lessia; now…now it was very difficult to get anything done.

  And he and Kat had no privacy.

  She seemed to be mulling all that over in her mind. “Well…let me meet her. I really didn’t like that priest.”

  They went in, and rather than standing on her dignity—the potential employee was sitting on the floor, playing peek-a-boo with a laughing Alessia.

  A better way of persuading Katerina would have been difficult to find. The woman stood up, curtseyed—still being held onto by Alessia. Her voice was quiet and sad and her accents refined.

  By the second day the new nanny Marissa was an essential part of the household. Not only did she get in very early, but her only task was to entertain and watch ‘Lessi. Which she did with an obsessive care. She talked to her, listened to her, carried her, fetched toys, fed her…“Makes life a lot easier,” said Marco, listening to the laughter as they sat in bed.

  It did. It was a few hours which were now miraculously and deliciously less full of a small child. You couldn’t not love ‘Lessi—she was just rather a dramatic and chaotic change in their previously childless lives. Marco began planning on getting to that less sedentary lifestyle. Of course Marissa was only a support, and there to help while they were home, and while they had temporary custody of Alessia, but perhaps later…

  Well, at this point, who knew what the future would bring.

  Chapter 23

  Baghdad

  In his magnificent palace in the great city of Baghdad the Ilkhan, Hotai the Ineffable, glowered at his grand vizier and the four assembled generals. He had moved far from his Mongol origins in dress and indeed in habit, but not in traditional diet. And he ate as if he spent the same number of hours in the saddle or at war as his distant cousins. Sheep-meat and good wine, if not qumiss, had not been kind to him. It had made him rotund and lazy, he admitted to himself. But he was not a fool, and he managed his empire, and his large court, and even his harem, well.

  Running the empire had kept him here…sedentary, being an administrator. But that was w
hy he had generals running each of the fronts of the empire, unlike his father who had liked campaigning himself and lived to eighty doing so, forever criss-crossing the empire and dragging his court around.

  However, the news that brought his generals and his vizier before him was nasty hearing, and made the old warrior blood in him rise and demand that something sharp and pointed be brought to bear on the problem. “What do you mean, they are everywhere? These Baitini are not spirits! We know where they come from! Take punitive steps. Alamut must be destroyed. Bring its master to Baghdad in chains.”

  “I was alerted to just what the problem was by the Old Man of the mountain, in Alamut,” said the grand visier, with a conciliatory wave of his hand. “This time, it is not the Old Man’s doing. It appears that the group no longer takes orders from there, and destroying Alamut would be counter-productive.” He coughed. “They have actually always part of the local governance. They made reliable…agents… and once we bought them, they were relentless. It was the way they worked, and they’re good for solving…problems. In fact, we have used them a great deal, Your Ineffability. Only, now they have turned against us—or some of them have, at any rate. We, um, had no idea of their numbers or how high they had risen in certain administrations. We have identified some of them, of course, but we don’t know who all of them are. But there are several satrapies which are effectively being made ungovernable by their actions. And what worries me is that I don’t know why, or what they plan.”

  “We need to make an example,” said General Quasji, of the northern march. “I propose that we sack their principal cities.”

  The Ilkhan eyed him unfavorably. Normally such interviews were conducted with the entire court. The grand vizier had not called for this meeting to be private for no reason. Plainly he had chosen these men for loyalty and to ensure secrecy in this council. But this fool general was playing as if to the gallery. Playing for future power. “They are our principal cities, Quasji. Our sources of taxation and income. Why would we sack our own cities and destroy the livelihoods of our own subjects?”

  “Besides, they seek to make a religious schism in our troops,” said General Harob. “We have no small number who have gone over to being followers of the Prophet Mohammed. While the great majority of the Moslems in our domains do not share the sect…they have put it about that we are the enemy of Islam.”

  General Harob was in control of the campaign in Cicilia. Hotai knew him to be a devout Nestorian. It was why he’d been put in Cicilia, to keep the war there from being perceived as a religious one, to draw in allies against the Mongol from the Christian lands to the west. The Ilkhan played a slow game in Asia Minor, gradually nibbling away at the kingdoms there. Actually Hotai had no vast appetite for conquest. But it was a Mongol tradition and it kept the army in a state of readiness. “If we were to persecute our own people in the hopes of destroying these Bataini, we would appear to actually be the enemy of Islam.”

  “I think a show of real force might be in order,” said General Malkis. The elderly campaigner was effectively retired from the campaigns in Hind, but still wielded a great deal of influence. He had been a loyal friend of Hotai’s father, and it had been his support that had made it clear that there was to be no dynastic squabble when Hotai had become the Great Khan.

  “That must be done,” said the Ilkhan, “Assuredly. But what? Throwing ourselves against our own people is like skinning the sheep to get the wool. True, you have wool and meat and skin, but only once. Then it is gone forever.”

  “But we do not wish to show any sign of weakness to our foes. We’ll have invasions and insurrections,” said the grand vizier. “There is unrest in many quarters already.”

  Hotai knew this was all leading somewhere, and not towards his dinner “What do you propose then?”

  “A royal procession, Great Khan. With attendant troop maneuvers and parades and displays of force. And a few salutatory lessons, perhaps. Especially if we can capture some of these Baitini. We might bring back the polo game using the heads of the condemned, perhaps.” The vizier pulled at his lip. “The general populace would enjoy that. They fear the Baitini, I am told.”

  Unlike his father, Hotai had not left Baghdad since being raised to being Ilkhan to the Southern Horde. He blinked. He had traveled as a young prince, of course. Just to move the whole court was…

  Actually, a pleasant idea. It would do some of them a great deal of good to have something other than debauchery and intrigue to deal with. They’d like it less than he did. “Plan to make it so, Grand Vizier Orason. And I think we need a few visitations of troops to areas which have had particular problems. Just their being there will be a reminder for them. So: where shall we go first?”

  “West or north, Great Khan. There are more problems there. The Arab tribes are restive, but we have more troops there anyway. And they have little more than sand, goats and banditry to the southwest.”

  Hotai smiled and made up his mind. “We will proceed first to Mosul. And have proclamations read in the cities of Aleppo, Tabriz and Damascus, so that they are to prepare. We will visit them as well.”

  “But…they are, well, in opposite directions, Great Khan,” said the grand vizier, plainly wrestling with the idea of explaining geography to his overlord.

  He nodded. This was part of his plan. Altogether, he was cautiously pleased with it. “Precisely. We will not say when we will visit them.” They would be in a froth, a frenzy of preparation and worry. They would also have great motivation to root out these Bataini themselves, to have prisoners to present to their Khan.

  That drew a smile and an acquiescent nod. “It shall be done, Great Khan. There is also the matter of requests from several of our subordinate states. It is an opportunity to draw them more under our control. They’re asking for help.”

  He made a gesture of agreement. “It will of course be our gracious pleasure to render it. And now you are dismissed from my presence, except for you, General Malkis, and you, Orason.”

  When they had paid their respects and left, and the tongueless guards were back at their stations at the great closed doors, the Ilkhan cleared his throat. “And now. We need to discuss how we rid ourselves of this canker within.”

  The grand vizier scowled. “I have been compiling lists, Great Khan. The problem is, well, they are well suited to spying and gathering information. It is difficult to know who to trust. Several of them are in high positions. And they have been loyal to the Ilkhanate for a century. We thought them loyal, at least. But it appears that they have been like maggots beneath the skin of a sound-seeming apple. It is only their numbers that hold them in check at all.”

  “Not so in the tumens,”said General Malkis. “We are Mongol.”

  The Ilkhan knew that this was not really so. In theory, the military were Mongol. Of course in practice this had not been so for many years. The noble Mongol were still largely of Mongol blood, but intermarriage, especially with the Turkic tribes whose the way of life was similar, was normal. And of course skilled military engineers had always been welcome in the army of the Khans. They had received many honors and become part of the nation.

  The general correctly interpreted the look his overlord gave him. He had known his father well, and Hotai had been told he shared many mannerisms with the late Great Khan. His father had mostly been a distant man, often away and at war, so Hotai really could not say. “They are Mongol in loyalty at least. Your great-uncle the Ilkhan Hulagu decided the ‘shmaeli made poor soldiery. He disliked and distrusted them and put measures in place against them.”

  Hotai’s great-uncle had been an erratic and occasionally brutal ruler. But his legacy had been a secure empire, and, it would seem, had kept the enemy within out of the military.

  “There will be a few. They’re allowed to lie to unbelievers in the name of their religion. Still, it is a strength. But it will draw the army away from its usual work.”

  “What effect will this have on our campaigns?”

&n
bsp; The old warhorse shrugged. “Great Khan, we fight many small wars all the time. I think our enemies scattered, and unlikely to ally…but they will push back in places. Or find relief and regroup. Cicilica is one such front. Hind another.”

  The Great Khan considered his options. “Plan for the worst,” he decreed. “But let us act as if we had no such plans at all. We, too, may lie.”

  Trebizond

  Michael Magheretti, the Podesta of the Venetian community of Trebizond, had moved his life into a well-practiced non-routine since the fleet had left. Tasks had to be done, and work dealt with…but according to no pre-ordained pattern. Trebizond was still in the grip of mayhem and fear. The sultan himself had survived an attempt on his life. Michael…three.

  The city had degenerated into a series of cantons, with barricades and armed men with cross-bows at the windows, watching them. Still, somehow, life went on even with the honest—or at least, the more-or-less honest and honorable—confined to their houses and their work places constantly under guard, de facto prisoners, while the murderers and thugs roamed free. The wrong people behind bars…

  One got used to it, thought Michael glumly. And the Venetians had at least been able to draw together. It had not been good for their cohesion with the local Greek-speaking inhabitants, and even less so for the newer settlers from the hinterland. Once this had been one of the melting pots of East and West. Now they were separating out, with agony for many of the mixed families.

  He settled himself at his somewhat dimly lit desk—away from the barred window—where his eyes would struggle but at least he would not be visible. He looked at the pile of paper. At one of his bodyguards picking his teeth with his dagger. “What is that noise?”

  One bodyguard moved to the window, obliquely. The other came closer to the desk, hand on his sword. “Cavalry,” said the window-peerer with some satisfaction. “The Ilkhan’s troops, by the looks of it.”