Burdens of the Dead Read online

  The Patriza Parvitto’s once sumptuous and very private walled villa half a mile outside the little town had been converted into a mixture between a manufactory and a headquarters. They were accustomed to early morning visits here. “The Milanese messengers. Send them,” said Poulo, yawning. “He can tell Sforza we have the merchandise. It needs an escort. Hell. I am tired. See the brat into the cells, and get me some food.”

  His second in command, who ran this side of the entire business, and gave the Patriza her daily ration of black lotos, nodded. “Sforza is just across the border now. But I don’t think these are his men. They spoke of Mantova and a garrison there.”

  “Whatever. They know where they have to go to. I think we might be wise to move ourselves over the border for a while.”

  * * *

  The Milanese messengers rode off. Verona was not safe these days, so there were three of them. They had a lot further to go than Bevilacqua castle—a thirty mile ride to Mantova. They were a little better informed on the roads and the whereabouts of military detachments than Francisco Turner had been, and avoided any delays or conflicts. Still, there was almost no way the escort could be back before Terce.

  * * *

  Pegasus flew on. The great winged horse made use of air currents, and, obviously, magic. Benito, with an interest in strategy, and thus maps and geography, had no idea where they were But plainly the great horse did. What had begun as one of the most comfortable riding experiences he had ever had gradually became less comfortable, then uncomfortable, then excrutiating. He was not used to staying in one relative position for so long, the cold ate into his bones, and he had to piss so badly it hurt.

  Eventually they set down near a stream. Benito dismounted, stiffly stretched a little, relieved himself, drank, ate and stretched himself some more, while Pegasus did the same. It was cold and there were little drifts of snow next to the yellowing grass.

  “Grass.” Pegasus filled up greedily on the poor fodder. “I think I have had nothing but hay for the last century.”

  “I think it’s been longer than that,” said Benito. His grasp of ancient history was poor, but he was still sure that ruins took longer than a mere hundred years to get that ruined. “But I think you were sort of outside of ordinary time.”

  “Gods are,” said Pegasus, shaking his mane. “I know you were in pain. You will be in pain again, but it cannot be helped. Now, you must mount again.”

  That, along with the galloping take off and running landing were the worst aspects of this means of travel. That and the cold and the muscle cramps. This time he had made certain not to drink too much. He was grateful for the blanket and the hood of the cloak and its fur—and the warmth of the flying horse. “You are not too tired?” he asked when he had managed to scramble up.

  “I have drunk from the fountains of youth and strength. And I am the child of a god and a goddess. I do not know weariess.” Pegasus tossed his head high and snorted. “You have said there is urgency. I know what it is to be a captive child. We must free yours. We will fly across the night, and by morning we will be where your leman has shown me you need to go. And then, I too will be free.”

  “If you’re up for it, so am I.” Benito thought that the horse was being less than accurate about being tired or when they would get there, but he had no choice.

  They flew across the dusk and onward in the cloud-sharded moonlight, towards northern Italy and the dawn.

  * * *

  In the shadowy halls beyond, a worried, angry, frustrated woman tried to keep her temper and her patience. She watched as her confused, unhappy, imprisoned child swung an angry little fist at the man who had brought her food. “Don’t want that. Don’t want you. I want—.”

  He slapped her. She was too shocked for a moment even to cry. And then the tear trickled down her face. But she remained defiant. “You’re mean! You’re bad! Bad man! My daddy will hurt you.”

  Her guard threw the bread down on the pallet that formed her bed and set the bowl of whatever passed for soup they had on the floor. “Shut up, brat. Your daddy is a long way off. Now eat your food. Or don’t. I don’t care. Starve.”

  He walked out and locked the room behind him.

  Maria seethed. If she could have reached into his chest, she would have torn his heart out. The only good thing was that Benito was not that far off and he was moving towards this place very rapidly. So rapidly it was hard for her to even watch him, let alone talk to him.

  But something had drawn her elsewhere in her searching to see what Benito and Marco were doing, to strangers who had spoken Benito’s name. There, she’d overheard the orders being given and messengers being sent to Carlo Sforza. It was not hard to find his thread and follow it. And to see just how close he was.

  Maria wondered if Benito would get there in time. Or just what the man who was called the Wolf of the North wanted with her daughter? He had an army there. Asleep, true. But there were thousands of them. Too many for Benito unaided.

  Would Venice go to war for her daughter?

  Chapter 39

  The Veneto coast

  Benito would have given his life for a drink of hot brandy. Or, indeed, anything hot. Even one of Marco’s herbal things.

  From on high Benito could see the coming morning light, outlining the mountains to the east, and the faint glimmer of the waters of the Adriatic and the lagoons of the coast in the arms of the dark land.

  He was freezing cold, stiff, ached in every joint, cramping, and knew that whatever else was coming he’d have to be ready to fight not just for his life, but his daughter’s. It was very beautiful up here, and he appreciated that, but he concentrated on massaging his arms and legs as best he could.

  They began spiraling inward.

  “This is the place your woman directed me to. You must honor your promise when I land there, and free me,” said Pegasus.

  “Then, in order that you don’t get shot, or get me shot, I suggest we land a few hundred yards from the place,” said Benito, practically. After all, he’d landed with Pegasus earlier. It involved a lot of noise, running and some distance. “You might be the son of gods, but I don’t think you’re arrow-proof.”

  “You will let me go then?” demanded the winged horse.

  He laughed a little. The poor thing had been a captive for so long that it still expected treachery. “I gave you my word. Actually, not only did I give you mine, but Maria gave you hers, and that’s even more important to me. Set me down safe and sound and the world is yours to explore.”

  “Very well. There is a road, and no one is near it. We will land there.” The horse began a steep descent towards the slash in the landscape that was the road he had spotted.

  Benito finished his flying experience by falling off. Fortunately, falling well was something Erik had taught him, and Pegasus had nearly come to a standstill when it happened. The bank was mercifully free of stones or tree-stumps. What was a bit of mud, when you came right down to it?

  He got up and walked to Pegasus who was coming toward him to see if his passenger was in one piece.

  “Thank you,” said Benito. Pegasus lowered his great head and Benito took off the golden bridle. “Enjoy your freedom. You more than earned it. Go find yourself some sweet grass and a sweeter mare.”

  The horse shook itself and bowed its head. “You dealt fairly. I expected less. May you have success too.”

  And then at a canter he took off down the road, spreading his wings, rising to greet the dawn.

  In the next moment, Maria was there with him—or rather, that shadow of her was. She looked so strained he thought she would fly apart at any moment.

  She also looked as if she wanted to throw her arms around him and cry. “Thank the great Mother. They haven’t moved her yet, Benito. But they have sent for an escort for her. There’s a guard on the gate, and another two patrolling inside the wall.”

  He nodded with appreciation. That was his Maria! She might be beside herself, but she kept the pres
ence of mind to scout for him. “You tell me where they are, and I’ll see if I can get over that wall before it gets any lighter.”

  She wrung her hands. He’d never actually seen anyone do that before. “One of them hit her. She’s your child, Benito. She said her daddy would hurt them. I hope you do.” Maria’s tone made clear they would be lucky if it was Benito who did the punishing and not her.

  “I plan to,” he promised grimly. “I plan to hurt them a lot. But first I need to get her out of there. How many of them are there?”

  Now she looked uncertain. “Maybe…fifty. Some are asleep.”

  Benito gave a crack of laughter. “Well, so long as it isn’t more than fifty. Lead me to it, girl. Let’s see if we can do this without waking any of them.”

  ***

  Some miles away, on the very fringe of what had once been the marshlands of ancient Eturia, the Lion stirred in Marco Valdosta. A nonhuman, a creature of magic, has just flown over the corner of my realm. A winged horse. I was unaware that any survived.

  First the poisoning, then the kidnapping—was this the third try? “Is it coming to attack Venice?”

  It would rather appear to be going the same way as you are.

  That did not comfort him. “A sending of Chernobog, maybe? Come to fetch ‘Lessi.”

  It did not feel foul.

  “He can use things,” Marco turned to the troop-captain. “Can we go any faster?”

  “No M’Lord,” said the captain. “We have a good twenty-five miles to go, and if we press our mounts too hard, they’ll founder.”

  Marco sighed worriedly. “I wish this horse could fly too.”

  The Veneto

  Carlo Sforza had left the castle with two hundred men. They’d been given very strict instructions about not shooting, and an explanation that if the child was killed their own lives would be forfeit. Behind him, the encampment and billeted officers were stirring men to action. In two hours there’d be two thousand men heading this way, and by terce the better part of seven thousand up and ready to move—all the men at his disposal right now. They had none of the supplies and logistics arranged, but Carlo knew that sometimes hard, fast and brutal succeeded when planning could not. He wanted his options open.

  They advanced methodically. Scouting, blocking all the possible flight routes with stopper-groups—circling the target to make sure it was enclosed.

  “We should be there just after dawn. I hope, Francisco, that this is not a false alarm and that they have long since recovered the child.”

  The tired physician smiled wryly. “I just hope we’re not too late, or that I am not wrong about the place. I hope, instead that I am wrong, and that Marco Valdosta has the little one back. She looks like you, you know. She loves Marco dearly.”

  “He was a soft boy.” Sforza shook his head. “Forgiving. I never really understood him.”

  “There is that about him still. But there is steel too.” Francisco pursed his lips. “More steel than you know. I think you might mistake softness for foolishness, and there is nothing that could be called foolish in him. Sometimes I find it is the weak who cannot forgive, and the strong who can, and by that measure, Marco may be the strongest man I know. He’s very different from what I have heard of Benito, though.”

  Sforza brooded for a long moment, staring at a point between his horse’s ears. “Benito sent me back my pilgrim medal. At first I wondered if he’d stolen it from me. Been that close to me that he could have cut my throat. Later I heard he’d taken it from the thief.” He sighed. “I’ve never been a believer in regrets, but I should not have let her take the children. She was no good to them. It is nothing short of a miracle that they survived, much less turned out as they have.”

  “Those are the walls of the villa, M’Lord,” said their local guide, pointing to buildings barely visible in the pre-dawn, maybe a little less than half a mile distant.

  “Down!” shouted someone.

  The great wings beat at the sky. Troopers tried to calm their panicked mounts. Some of them tried to catch the horses they’d fallen off. The thing passed overhead, arrow-swift, and out of sight. It looked like it was landing somewhere ahead.

  “What in the name of all the saints was that?” demanded Sforza.

  Francisco shook his head. “Either I landed on my head and not my shoulder, or it was a flying horse.”

  “I think we will approach this building quite cautiously,” said Carlo Sforza. “And if it wasn’t for the fact that my grand-daughter might just be in there, I would be going back to Bevilacqua as fast as I could ride.

  “Could be Marco Valdosta. He traffics with magic,” said Francisco, rubbing his forehead. “Remember what I said about strength, my lord.”

  Sforza grunted. “And…surprises.”

  * * *

  Benito Valdosta, who had up to now seriously avoided trafficking with magic, and had no skills in that regard, wished right now that he did have.

  Roof-climbing had got him this far. But he’d never mastered more than the rudiments of lock-picking. And that was all that was between him and his daughter.

  “We need the key. Or a big pry-bar. I can’t take a chance shooting the lock out.. It might hit ‘Lessi and doesn’t always work anyway. It would make noise, too, which we can’t afford.”

  “And I can’t even tell her you are here,” said Maria, sadly. “I don’t know what Hekate did, but it seems I can speak to you but to no one else.”

  Benito’s mouth twisted into something between a snarl and a grimace. “I want to hug my girl…but it’s best if she keeps quiet. Can you look around?”

  “I will try. It’s not easy, Benito. I follow people more easily than looking at places, unless there are…memories of people there. This is a sad, horrible place. But I will try.”

  A few moments later she returned, as Benito levered at the door with his main gauche to no avail. It was a door intended to keep desperate people confined. “There is someone sleeping in the next room. Perhaps he has the key?”

  “I have to start somewhere,” said Benito, and left the door to itself for a moment.

  The sleeper awoke to a knife at his throat and a very strong hand over his mouth. “If you want to live longer than the next few heartbeats,” hissed Benito into his ear, “I need the keys for the room the child is locked in. And I really, really would like to kill you. That’s my daughter in there, and if it weren’t that I need to know how to get her out, your life would not be worth a rusty pin. Now I am going to take my hand away from your mouth. Your door is closed and no one else is awake here. I’ll push this blade into your brain if you speak above a whisper. You won’t even manage a whole scream.”

  He took his hand away slowly, knife-point in the man’s ear.

  The wide-eyed man was absolutely rigid as Benito removed his hand, and in a strangled rasp said: “Alberto keeps them. He’s…he’s upstairs at the end of the corridor. With his woman. Please don’t kill me.”

  Benito hit him instead, with the back of the pommel of his main gauche, hard, on the back of the head. Something cracked. The man groaned and slumped. Benito scowled slightly. He might just have killed the man. He wasn’t sure—and, truth to tell, he didn’t care that much. Right now he was of the opinion that if he got the chance, he’d kill every one of these bastards and let God sort the innocent from the guilty. If there were any innocent.

  He turned to the shadow of Maria. “Upstairs?”

  She gestured upwards. “There are several people awake up there now. The kitchen is getting going. But there is a door into the kitchen garden and stable-yard along the passage from here. You were looking for a tool. There is a pick-axe there.”

  “That’ll have to do.”

  It was next to the manure pile, along with a wooden shovel, and, hanging on the wall, some old rope. Somewhere in the distance a lark began to trill. The sky was perceptibly lighter than it had been when he’d gone over the wall. Morning was breaking. Benito crept towards the gate—with the sh
ovel and the rope.

  “Where are you going?” hissed Maria.

  “I’m going to quietly lift that bar across the gate. And then I’m going to tie this rope across the path from the stables. And then I am going to jam this shovel under the guard-room door like a wedge. Half of winning is having a good escape. Breaking her out is going to make a noise, and we’ll need to run. I want a clear run. There’s a copse about sixty yards from the gate and that stream I crossed is in it. If I can get there with ‘Lessi the water-sprites will help her and hide her.”

  A few moments later, with the chisel edge of the pick forced into the narrow gap between it the jamb, the door was also, like morning, broken.

  Noisily.

  Wood and then the lock cracked and then broke out.

  Benito hit the door with his shoulder and fell into the room. His daughter was standing there on a filthy pallet, thumb in her mouth, hair disheveled, face tear-stained.

  She pulled her thumb out of her mouth and screamed “Daddy!” at the top of her lung capacity. Benito scooped her up. “On my back, little one. Hold tight. We’re going to have to run.”

  He desperately wished he’d kept a winged horse on standby. This had not been part of his plan at all. In quietly and out quietly, had been what he’d had in mind.

  But he’d also not considered that there was going to be noise. Or a garrison of fifty. This was the best he could do, considering, and he had to hope it would be good enough to get her out.

  He’d also considered nobbling the stable door in some way, to prevent them following—but had rejected it. Horses were as good watchmen as dogs, and stable-boys tended to sleep there.

  Still, the main gate was effectively open and the stables were close. He could have taken a horse if he were a rider of Erik’s capacity. He ran back down the passage, with ‘Lessi clinging to his back.

  Only to meet someone coming down the stairs to investigate the noise. A hairy half-dressed someone, with a hand-cannon in his hand. Benito didn’t wait for anything, shot or challenge, but threw his knife, hitting the man just in the vee below his Adam’s apple.