Burdens of the Dead Read online

  And, all being well, for the cost of defending a narrow strip of land north of Callipolis town, they could hold the Hellespont. Even if they failed on Constantinople, this too would do. It was not as easy to control as the Bosphorus, but they could make it very difficult for Jagiellon’s fleet to reach the Mediterranean. It had been one of the first objectives discussed in the secret conclaves of the Council of Ten. To have made their arrival less than a deadly secret would have meant there would be a garrison of thousands waiting. Instead there was a mere eight hundred cuirassiers garrisoned at Callipolis; in theory available to defend and patrol the lands beyond the walls of the forts, but in practice, staying warm and dry and utterly unaware that they were about to be attacked.

  To land and take the peninsula in face of a determined enemy would have been suicidal and expensive of men. To take it some months before they were expected, and by surprise, on a fairly miserable winter night, graced with rain and a little sleet, had been unpleasant, but not hard.

  If the Council of Ten’s agents—warned by Benito’s Spiro—had done their work properly, most of the Byzantine cuirassiers would be stuck in their barracks right now…or close to their privies. Buckbean in the issue wine wasn’t going to kill them. But it would loosen their bowels to the extent that many of them might wish they were dead.

  Some might cavail at such ploys and say they were without honor. Not Dell’este. Oh no. The young cub got the Old Fox’s cleverness, the duke thought, with another contented smile. Perilous though this enterprise was—well, it was good to know there were two sets of sharp wits to attack it.

  Chapter 28

  Trebizond

  One could not move the Ilkhan himself from the great palace at Baghdad without considerable upheaval. A great deal of movement of troops. And tents and equipment. Of course certain preparations had to be made. An upsurge in security and a few summary executions were to be expected.

  And in various satrapies and vassal states, of course, they were glad that Ilkhan Hotai the Ineffable had heard their pleas and sent some of his troops.

  Trebizond breathed easier. Michael Magheretti did not. The young Podesta’s breathing was one of the things that worried the Siblings caring for him most, as he lay somewhere between life and death.

  Barricades were being gradually taken down. And as the fear diminished, so the anger rose.

  “Here is where he stood,” Signor Gambi pointed. “There is only one place that the bolt could have come from, signors. There.”

  He pointed to the minaret of the place of worship of followers of Mohammed. The new religion had come with settlers from the hinterland but it was not widely embraced here. The city was still principally Greek speaking and was mostly Nestorian, despite the sultan and his men being followers of Islam. The city and the coastal plain had been part of Byzantium once, before the Seljuk conquest. Old memories and old hatreds, because there had been a great deal of persecution before the Ilkhan had come to their borderlands, and resentment of the Dhimmi tax surfaced. After all, under the Ilkhan tax or tribute was rendered by all non-Mongols, regardless of religion.

  That had been mere hours ago. One man pointing, and a loose tongue to say what he pointed to. Old hatreds and new. Fear of the assassins turning to rage. Little enough, in the greater scheme of things. How it turned from unrest, to a baying mob with burning brands heading for the mosque no one was quite sure. Local Greeks and Venetians all united, wanting someone or something visible to punish for their misery of the last few months? Something more than that? It didn’t matter. The mob was loose now, and a mob is an animal with many tongues, many teeth, and no head. Those many tongues were howling now. “Burn them! Burn the heathen bastards!”

  But somehow word had got to the mosque before them.

  Two dozen of the sultan’s Seljuk foot soldiers stood there, nervously holding their swords, facing a mob of at least a thousand angry men and women.

  “Go back! Go back on the order of the sultan,” said the guard commander, nervously. Clearly he was in no mood for a fight, even if his men had not been outnumbered.

  One of Venetian merchants pushed forward. “They’ve shot our Podesta from that tower. They’ve been hiding those Baitini bastards. Get out of the way. We’ve no fight with the sultan, but we won’t let you stop us burning their rats-nest to the ground.”

  And into this mess walked two men in their Hypatian robes: the abbot and Brother Ambrose, the Sibling who had given communion the day the Baitini had tried to commit murder in the church. They were cheered—until they turned around just short of the guards and the elderly abbot addressed them. He was old, but his voice carried. “I cannot let you do this, my children.”

  The mob suddenly ceased to be a mindless animal—but it was still made of men and women determined to have rough justice. The merchant spoke for them, sternly. “Stand aside, Father! We’re doing God’s work here.”

  The abbot was just as stern—and had respect, age and notoriety that the merchant did not. And also, perhaps, the aura of one under the hand of the divine. Certainly at that moment a beam of sunlight touched him, turning his white hair to a kind of halo. “How can you be sure? Was it not Saint Hypatia herself who said the understanding of God by any man is flawed, because God is beyond all human understanding? I cannot stand by and let you burn this place. So Ambrose and I will go inside. If you burn it, you will burn us.”

  “Those Baitini murderers will kill you, father.”

  “Then we will have died an honorable death in the service of God,” said the abbot calmly, turning and pushing past the handful of Seljuk guards.

  * * *

  Abdullah looked incredulously down from his hide-out behind one of the fretted windows just beneath the dome. There was a sill there about three cubits wide, and thanks to the respect the mosque was held in, this place had never been thoroughly searched. The imam, who was now angrily berating the two foreigners who had walked into the holy place, shod, was one of the brethren. “Malkis. Look. It’s the old infidel priest!” He began reaching for his crossbow. This could not have been better. God smiled upon them, putting their enemy into their very hands. It was surely intended. They were meant to destroy this blasphemer, and strike fear into the hearts of the infidels.

  He was unaware that his companion, who had only recently recovered from the beating in the Chapel when they’d attacked the Hypatians at their morning devotions, was staring in horror at the Sibling next to the old abbot. Instead he took careful aim and fired… just as the furious imam grabbed the abbot, and shoved, intending to send him out the door.

  He was also unaware that Malkis, one of the hidden hands of the blade, had drawn his stiletto. A moment after the crossbow-bolt struck home, he drove the thin point into the crossbow-man’s brain.

  * * *

  The bolt hit the Imam as he grabbed the Abbot. The other three senior members of the mosque council, who had been trying to restrain him from this insanity screamed in unison. Several of the Seljuk soldiers ran inside.

  The mob outside, which had been subsiding and starting to trickle away began to rumble and turn.

  The Seljuk guard commander stared at his dead Imam, a cross-bow bolt protruding from his chest.. “Who killed…”

  In answer one of the mosque’s senior counselors pointed to a man sliding down a rope from an opening in the open ornamental fretwork high up the wall, just beneath the dome.

  There were yells from outside. “I think I will go and speak to them,” said the abbot calmly, as if the chain-mail vest had not helped the bolt to ricochet and left him with bruising that would last a month.

  The Seljuk nodded hastily. “Please, Father.”

  So he did. A little later he came back, with two of the Venetian merchants and a local Greek ship-chandler. “It is easier to show them.” The three Seljuks were surrounding the man who had lowered himself down—warily and at a safe distance. The Baitini still had a fearsome reputation.

  He, however, paid them no mind. “Br
other. Holy man,.” he called to the slight Sibling Ambrose.

  Ambrose looked at him. “You were one of those who came to the church and killed Sister Eugenia.”

  The Baitini assassin nodded. “Yes. You said then that…we could repent and accept grace.”

  “Christ will always accept those who do that,” said the Sibling, even if his tone indicated that right now, he would rather that it was otherwise.

  The Baitini knelt. “I want to do this.”

  One of the Seljuks, who had been stalking forward behind the assassin, raised his sword. “Hold!” said the abbot. “Let us hear what he has to say.”

  * * *

  “They will kill him for his treachery. They always do. Their own are more afraid of their enforcers than anything else,” said the Venetian merchant who listened to the confession, along with the rest of the people now crowded into the mosque—to the shock of the council—but at least they were not considering burning it, and all of those in it. In fact, there were murmurs of miracles. Well…there was no reason why this could not be a miracle. The abbot was more inclined to believe in God turning the hearts of men than he was in angels deflecting crossbow bolts.

  The abbot looked at the still kneeling Baitini assassin, still holding the cross Brother Ambrose had given to him with both hands. “He knows that. He knows that perfectly well. I think he has accepted it.”

  “What do we do about it? He’s a murderer.”

  “Yes. I think eventually, if he lives long enough, he may come to understand that too. I think if he lives long enough he could also become a saint,” said the abbot.

  “So what do we do about it, Father?”

  “See that he lives long enough, if we can.”

  Chapter 29

  Off the coast of Callipolis peninsula

  “It’s not right,” said Admiral Borana angrily.

  Enrico Dell’este looked coldly at him. “What should we have done, Sirrah? Sent messengers to tell them of our actions? Earlier you were demanding that we cannonade the fort, and storm it, for its arrant insolence. You have heard its commander tell you that they had orders to fire on any fleet of vessels regardless of flag. You also heard the man say that we were not expected until early spring. Our ruse on Corfu worked.”

  “But, but, but…” the man spluttered. “We were not at war! And now the Venetian vessels sail past us. We are supposed to lead the fleet.”

  The Old Fox kept his expression schooled. It was not the first time that he had been forced to deal with a well-born booby, one who was more concerned with appearances than results. “I give you my solemn word. Had the men in that fort allowed you to sail past without firing on you, we would not have captured their fort. We would have sailed on peacefully. We only took action after they had fired on you.”

  Now the booby veered into another complaint. “But they might have sunk us. The ball took away my foremast.”

  Enrico searched for patience. He did not find much. “The choice was yours. To accept the honor of leading the fleet or not. And had we attacked before they fired on your vessels…we could have started a war that we want no part of.”

  The admiral was not about to let logic deprive him of a good fury. “But the Venetian vessels do not follow my lead! Several of the great galleys are rowing along the Hellespont as if their lives depended on it. And you gave that order. Not me.”

  “My grandson and two hundred and fifty men have gone to hold eight hundred in their barracks at Callipolis. Would you like them to die while you fuss about precedence?” Enrico stared unblinkingly. “The men of Venice, yes, and Ferrara, and belike your own common sailors by now, would hang you on your own yardarm if you’d caused them to fail those men and Benito Valdosta. And I would cheer them. We need to sail and we need to sail now. No one will know or care which vessel reaches them first, so long as any vessel does. There will be ample opportunity for you to go first into the cannons, when we reach Constantinople and beyond. In the mean time we need to take and hold Callipolis.”

  “Hold?” demanded the admiral suspiciously. Genoa did not want any more strategic territory lost to its rival.

  “Until the matter of the fleet in the Black Sea is sorted out. Genoa can remain with the garrison here, if you have no stomach for the fight.” said Enrico with the edge of disdain in his voice.

  The Genovese admiral was shocked at the implication. “We will lead it!” he said, proud and, as was his wont, arrogant.

  Enrico shrugged. “Well then. Let us see you do so.”

  “But they’re ahead of us!”

  “Catch up.”

  “This is a ship, not a horse,” spluttered the admiral. But he called to his captain to tell the men to damned well cut the cables and make all possible sail.

  Enrico Dell’este decided to forego telling him that they would not be stopping in Callipolis. A horse-messenger would carry the news to Constantinople fast enough, but there were still many preparations that could be made before a city was ready to face siege. Expensive preparations. Alexis, being the spendthrift wastrel that he was, would not have done those any earlier than he had to.

  If they pushed hard and fast, they’d get there just after a panicked city closed its gates. Not later, once the city had had time to order its affairs and be ready for the siege.

  Right now they had to keep close to the Callipolis peninsula side, as far as possible from Dardanellia on the Asia Minor shore. There was one narrow point, just over a mile wide, but that was still better than sailing within five hundred yards of the guns.

  Strangely enough, the guns were silent. Then Enrico figured it out and had to sit down, after laughing himself into a coughing fit. They were close to the guns on the Callipolis side. Which were silent. No one knew that Benito’s goal had been taken, at least not yet. So some clever officer had decided, plainly, that the fleet had somehow got permission to sail through. The military mind’s rigidity and assumption that things ran to order was the one advantage that a cunning strategist had.

  Callipolis Peninsula

  Actually, he was only half right, as he later found out. The opposing fort on the Callipolis side of the Hellespont had been taken entirely by surprise. The Venetians had not even had to blow the gate. On Benito’s instructions they had done some investigation about communication with the other fort. One of Benito’s men had ‘persuaded’ the officer in charge of the fort at the narrows that he could choose between a fall over the battlements or making a signal to the fort across the water, that word had come from Constantinople that the fleet was to pass, unmolested.

  They had some four leagues to row, and little help from the wind. This section of the peninsula was forested and steep, but even so, it was going to be impossible to get to Callipolis before a horseman, or even a runner did. On the other hand, Benito had the advantage of the westerly, and should get to landfall on the western shore long before them. Speed was of the essence as most likely the element of surprise had been lost.

  * * *

  On the west coast, the galliots were making good speed. Part of that was due to the wind. Part of that was probably due to the snoring. Benito would have loved to have a fresh set of legs, and a fresh set of men for this venture. Men lay, or leaned against each other in the cramped space the fast little galleys had to spare. The larger vessel they were supposed to rendezvous with, which would have food, and more men, and even some twenty light cavalry…had not been sighted. So Benito had his left-overs from the Cape Hellas campaign, and two squads of Swiss pikemen—his grandfather’s elite footmen, that Enrico had insisted come along. They at least were well rested, but that was all Benito had. Callipolis town was relatively small and poorly defended. There was a small village on the bay on the western side of the isthmus, that would provide an anchorage of sorts for the round ships and men if they needed to lay siege to Callipolis town. That had to be secured—and would allow them to set up check-points along the main track along the peninsula from the mainland to the town, as they were furt
her north. In the short term that would mean that they could stop the garrison sending for immediate help too. It had been his plan to leave the men from the Cap Hellas raid there. Now there was no help for it but to stretch themselves even thinner.

  When they landed, they found the village had been recently deserted. Nets were still hanging with net-needles swinging and fires and cook-pots were untended. That was hardly surprising. Even if the locals had taken them for Byzantine vessels, which was unlikely since they were fishermen, a group of warships was unwelcome in a little undefended harbor. Not that there was much to steal besides their wives, thought Benito, looking at poverty that made the Libri di oro look like the kindest of masters. He’d heard Byzantium was falling apart from the inside: here, he thought, was one of the reasons for that.

  “Right. Lieutenant Barassa. You and your three squads will be staying here. You’re to hold the town, and interdict the road. Rest some men—you’ll need to find horses or runners to keep in touch with us. Keep the men from looting—not that there is anything much to take. And you know how we dealt with rape on Corfu. Tell them the gelding knife is ready for them. We do not need the peasants against us. If you are attacked by a massive force, retreat under arquebus and cannon on the ship, but we won’t be able to get back here—so we’ll run along towards the forts we hold further up the peninsula. “The Cuttlefish”—he pointed to one of the galliots—”and a skeleton crew will be staying here with you. That means you have a bow-chaser cannon, and something to flee on if need be. The other two vessels will be out there looking for that…Captain, and the round ship with our re-enforcements, and my light cavalry scouts. If they get here, send them on to Callipolis.”