Burdens of the Dead Read online

  Hekate made a rude sound. “It is made of golden threads. No mortal would throw it away.”

  “What is gold compared to the life of your child? He had no interest in anything but in getting to our little girl.” She looked at Aidoneus. “He is a good man, Hekate.”

  “He does honor both the letter and the spirit of the agreements he makes,” said Aidoneus. “Even as regards my bride.”

  “It’s not easy,” sighed Benito. “But see? Even Aidoneus vouches for my word. And I have more proof for you. Look, Hekate. My brother Marco is bound to the Lion of St. Mark.”

  “The ancient Lion of Etruria, Hekate,” said Aidoneus. “He was there even in our earliest years. One of the great neutral powers, bound to the marshes and a part of them. His power in his realm is not diminished.”

  Hekate nodded slowly. “I remember the Lion.”

  “Well, my brother says the Lion was aware of a winged horse flying over a corner of the lagoons.” Benito shrugged. “It could have been me flying in. It could have been Pegasus flying out, alone. Marco was talking a blue streak, and I was very tired.”

  Now Hekate looked… not exactly doubtful, but as if many things she had thought were true had been shaken. “I shall enquire of the Lion of Etruria. We faced dangers together once. And distances are great here, but different elsewhere.”

  Then Hekate was gone. Benito looked at his grandfather, then sat down beside him. “Can you speak again?” he asked worriedly.

  The duke shook his head. He pulled a piece of parchment and a quill toward himself and wrote: Sorry.

  “It’s nothing. Hard to grasp what I blundered into, Grandfather.”

  The old man squeezed his hand. He still beat iron rather often and had a grip like a blacksmith—which he closed still tighter, moments later, because the room was rather too full of lion. A lion with vast wings. Hekate was there as well, but she seemed as insubstantial as a shadow beside the Lion. Benito was just glad he was sitting down already. Antimo looked as if he wished he was.

  “I do not leave my marshes easily or happily, Hekate,” said a voice which reverberated inside their skulls. “As your dogs are to you, the marshes are to me. My lifeblood. My reason.”

  Hekate’s eyes flashed, but not with anger. “I need to know what has happened to my child.”

  “He is now within my demesnes. Grazing and eyeing some wild horses in the water meadows near Chioggia.”

  Hekate rapped the butt of her harpoon on the floor again. It reverberated. “I need him to come home!”

  The Lion shook his mane. “I will neither constrain nor bind him Hekate. I can tell him, but not make him.”

  “May I say something?” asked Benito cautiously, trying to display the tact he was not famous for. They all looked at him. Having all those unhuman gazes on him was enough to turn the knees and bowels to water, but he went bravely on. “I spent quite a lot of hours with Pegasus. And, um, I haven’t left behind being a young colt myself, entirely.”

  Leonine laughter filled them.

  Hekate looked at him, nodded. “I was mistaken. But you should have brought him back to me.”

  “Then you would have lost him forever, Lady Hekate,” Benito said, earnestly, not-quite-pleading. “I know this is very, very hard for a mother to hear. He’s been a prisoner for a long time. I know you would cherish and love him. I can see that with your hounds. But he’s a colt, really. Young, a little wild. He needs to feel unconstrained for a little bit. Sow some wild oats maybe. It’s…a phase lot of us go through before settling down,” he said above the echoes of more Lion-roar laughter.

  “He should know,” said the Lion. “And now, Hekate, open your gates. I must go back. If you take young Valdosta’s advice, you’ll let me tell Pegasus that you miss him and would love to see him again, but that he must enjoy his liberty. And while he remains in my realms, I shall watch over him. But I will not tell him that, nor will I try to constrain him.”

  Hekate took a deep breath. “Will you do that? Tell him I would like to visit, briefly. Will you permit me to visit your marshes, great one?”

  The Lion folded his wings. “A bargain. I have learned from my people. They are great bargainers. The human to who I am bound and his mate are of a bloodline I need to continue. They are the last of their line. You had powers with childbirth…”

  “With birth yes. I will assist in opening that gate.” Hekate actually seemed…eager…when she said that.

  But the Lion bent his head a little. “I think intervention is required…earlier.”

  “It is not within my ambit,” Hekate said, with real regret.

  “It is mine,” said Maria. “I just didn’t know. She, uh Kat, didn’t say. And I didn’t want to ask.”

  “Very well. My need is served. Let me go. I shall deliver your message,” said the Lion.

  “My thanks,” said Hekate. Benito briefly glimpsed an endless sea of shifting rushes, reeds and waterways and the scent of Jesolo and mud and marsh waters. The Lion vanished among them.

  It might stink less than Venice. But the stench of Venice was also full of memories. Hekate turned back to those within the room, closing the way. “It appears you dealt fairly and spoke the truth,” she said to Benito. “I owe you my apology.”

  Benito shrugged. “It’s my face. Antimo told me last year. I have the kind of face that people believe the worst of. Sometimes they’re right. And now, please can you let my grandfather speak again?”

  “He did treat me with a lack of respect,” said Hekate, eyes slightly narrowed.

  “I am sure he won’t ever make that mistake again,” said Benito, trying to keep a straight face. He had a feeling not many people had laughed at Hekate. “But as you must know, you have not walked openly in the world for a very long time. People have forgotten you, your power, and what your due is. You cannot blame him for not recognizing what he has never known.”

  She plainly did not quite know what to make of that. But a sense of justice won. She waved her harpoon at Enrico.

  The duke stood up. Bowed very low. “Lady Hekate. I make my apology. My manners were those of a d…pig,” he said, looking at the two dogs. “I beg your pardon. I need to beg Benito’s pardon too. I was an old man being angry and afraid. I didn’t understand all this. I still don’t, but I thought he might have been, well, had his mind seized. There are magics that can do that, I have been told. Marco and Benito are all the blood I have left. It is easy to forget all else when your own are endangered.”

  She nodded regally. “I wish to ask him about my son, and how he dealt with Poseidon.” There was a bitterness in her voice, deep bitterness.

  “May I suggest, Your Grace, that we offer our guests some of that excellent mavrodaphne,” said Antimo.

  “We two cannot remain here,” interrupted Aidoneus.

  Maria closed her eyes briefly, and nodded. Benito had seen that look before. Aidoneus was in for a fairly major explosion from Maria. She did not like being told what to do, even if, right now, she might be pretending to be a good little wife. He didn’t like being a part-time husband but he had the satisfaction of knowing that he knew her moods and ways far better than the Lord of the Cold Halls.

  Hekate nodded. “Although I wonder why you still choose mortal brides, Aidoneus.”

  “They may die, but they also bring life. It seems that it is their fragility that is important, Goddess.” Aidoneus stepped through into a place of immense gray distances.

  “Wine,” said Antimo firmly, looking at his master. Enrico was definitely a little gray-faced himself. The duke shook himself. “Yes. In that cupboard, Antimo. There are good goblets of Murano glass too.”

  Spirits of wine might be a better choice after this, thought Benito. Even Iskander’s Slivovitz. At least after you’d drunk that, you’d expect to see supernatural beasts and ancient gods. But he was glad to accept the glass of ruby-red wine anyway. Benito noticed that Antimo was being fixed with an expectant stare by a couple of dog-faces. “Your Grace. Could I get
someone to bring us a couple of mutton bones?” asked his agent.

  I need to ask you just how you got to be friends with a Goddess’s dogs, thought Benito as the rather stunned duke nodded. If we get through the next few minutes without her silencing us all forever. And I would guess that that is not the worst she could do.

  Hekate wanted to know about Pegasus. So he told her. But she was plainly still hurt by the idea that he had not come to see her. “I didn’t understand how a parent feels about their children myself,” Benito said, “Until I was one. I don’t think you can. You worry. You would move heaven and earth for them. You would do anything, anything at all for them. But when you are the child, you don’t always understand that means love. Sometimes, all you see is barriers, when what you want is to fly. It’s—like holding an egg. If you want to keep it whole, you can’t hold it too tightly.”

  “Antimo is correct. Your face belies you,” she said, nodding, just a hint of a smile showing.

  Benito shrugged. “It’s useful sometimes. And Maria has got used to it.”

  “She is a very powerful woman,” said Hekate.

  Benito chuckled. “I know that. I don’t think Aidoneus has figured it out yet. He’s in for a few surprises, I think.”

  From there it was a short step to telling Hekate and his grandfather just how he’d ended up in the position that he was in with his wife. It was nice to finally tell someone—beside Erik and Manfred who’d been there, and Marco who had been left holding the baby, literally—what he’d done, and why, and how he would honor his word and his bargain even when he hated it.

  * * *

  For Hekate it was all a little like heady wine—as well as, of course, the heady wine they were drinking. But she had for so long been withdrawn from humanity that it was almost like binding herself into the world of humans again. She was still hurt and saddened by Pegasus and his desire to be self-centered and free. But, now that this Benito had pointed it out, it was behavior which she had seen in many young people over many generations. It was as sure as the sunrise, at a certain age.

  Also. their belief made her stronger still. They knew and acknowledged her, and her power.

  The dogs were content, warm and gnawing at bones at her feet. This after all was a dog’s idea of paradise. To roam and hunt yes, but be with their person, warm and with food. It did not take much to make them happy. And, Hekate found, they were not entirely incorrect.

  And then there was the pure satisfaction in knowing that Poseidon, who had thought that he would rule everything for always was a forgotten, fading old god. He was nearly powerless, senile, and now that he had lost his captive and only companion, utterly alone. There was no one who cared to be with him, who loved him as her dogs loved her. That, perhaps, was the most satisfying thing of all.

  * * *

  “Men, they make terrible war. That is their way,” she said rather dismissively. As if it was a man thing and had very little to do with her. Benito, with the experience of Thalia on Corfu, knew all too well that when women made war, you really didn’t want to get in their way. She’d been entirely pragmatic about killing their enemies. Besides Hekate wasn’t a gentle goddess from what he’d read. The huntress, well, hunted with her dogs.

  “Actually,” said the Old Fox, who was becoming quite mellow and philosophical in the presence of wine, a beautiful aristocratic woman and his grandson back again, “while that is true, sometimes, we fight now merely so that we have a safe return through the Bosphorus. We’ve offered Alexis terms, although he’s a treacherous little vole. But we’re left with little choice but to reduce the wall and take the city, and hold it. Or hope he comes to his senses. We are Venetian—well, Benito is. The Venetians don’t like to make war. It’s expensive. The Venetians like to make money.”

  She stiffened slightly. “Why do you wish to sail down the tear through the gate—the channel you call the Bosphorus?”

  The Old Fox dipped his finger in the wine and began drawing pictures on the table. Hekate leaned over to look at them. The pictures somehow became more…real…as she bent her gaze on them. “Jagiellon of Lithuania is building a huge fleet up on the Dnieper River. He has been pouring gold into Alexis’s coffers. We believe he plans to take control of Constantinople and attack us through the Mediterranean. It is said that he is merely the human form of some dark demon. The church calls it ‘Chernobog.’”

  “The Black God…the demon of the northlands. Cursed and feared,” said Hekate, darkly. “He has trespassed on my old demesnes in the last while. He has eyes that he uses.”

  Benito looked up at the goddess. “Watching us?”

  “Not any more,” said Hekate with obvious satisfaction.

  “Still. I think he saw too much. We had planned,” said Antimo, speaking with an openness that his employer plainly was taken aback by, “to have a gate opened for us, so we could take the city without a siege. Sieges are hard. But the agreed signal was given, and there has been no response. I assume either someone found out, or he was moved. So we continue to pound the walls on the Golden Horn. They are weakest. That was our fall-back plan.”

  “Women always suffer worst in a siege,” said Benito, meditatively. “Or so Maria said. And children. And babies.” He patted one of her dogs. “Not much fun for the dogs either.”

  “At least you are not in there, Lady Hekate,” said Antimo. “I…I did not understand. I still don’t fully, but I am glad you and the dogs are not in the city.”

  Benito grinned. “I thought he’d gone finally mad when he asked my help in protecting you, when we take the city.”

  The Goddess of Gateways looked at first offended…and then, as she saw Antimo scratching the base of a dog’s tail with his foot, a little flattered. “I cannot be confined. There is always another way.”

  Antimo hunched his shoulders a little. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t really want to accept…the way you appeared and vanished. It’s magic. I’m a very unmagical man. I understand what is ordinary. I can manipulate it, calculate it. I can’t…calculate magic. I’m quite ordinary, really.”

  “You are not,” said Hekate. “But I think you are unaware of your skill at enchantment.”

  She stood up. “My people would wage wars and go a-raiding. That never was my domain. Many passed through the final gateway because of it, though. I can take you within that city, Antimo Bartelozzi, and bring you out again. You can walk under my cloak and even without your powers, none would see you, if you can arrange an end to this. You speak sooth. Woman, children, horses and dogs suffer worst in wars.”

  Antimo blinked. “I…well, I might find out what is happening. Why the eunuch I had reached the agreement with—and paid the first installment to—has not fulfilled his part of the bargain.”

  “Then let us go.” She reached out her hand. He took it, and before Benito and Dell’este could blink, they were gone.

  * * *

  Antimo found the folding of light and darkness around him, and the sudden chiarascuro glimpses, as if through deeply shadowed gateways onto bright meadows and distant places, disconcerting but not frightening. The artist in him wanted to draw them, to capture their promise. And then they were in the alley where she’d met him in Constantinople.

  “Where do you go from here?” she asked.

  One does not tell a goddess, to whom a siege-tight fortress is an open door, that it is none of her business. For a moment the impact of what he was dealing with—what he had taken for granted—made him feel a little dizzy, a little weak, and very afraid. Then he got control of himself again. “The Hippodrome Palace kitchens. I have a contact there.”

  So they went along the back streets, cautiously, because there were patrols and signs of social disintegration—burned houses. And the smell. There was much less of it.

  Less to waste. The city had been ill-prepared for the siege.

  It appeared that Hekate and her dogs planned to walk beside him through the streets of Constantinople, and, now that he was beginning to
grasp what he dealt with, that was welcome. There were patrols and guards—and his contact in the kitchens was not there. So Hekate led him up into the palace and into the quarters of the beardless ones, the eunuchs who ran Byzantium’s bureaucracy.

  * * *

  Primikerios Melekaniodes had just finished a pleasant repast. He was not feeling the hunger that was already gripping the city. The last thing he expected, by the look on his face, was to encounter, here in his inner sanctum, a certain merchant he’d received a bribe from some months earlier.

  “I thought we had reached an agreement, Melekaniodes,” said the fellow, quite insolently, the primikerios thought.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded the eunuch in charge of allocations. He had reason to wonder. He’d given as detailed a description to the guards and to Byzantium’s spymaster as possible. They’d told him the man had fled the city, long before the attack. “Guard…urk.”

  The knife was pressed against his fat throat. “I had expected you to be dead. But plainly that is not the case. Yet.”

  Sweat started from the forehead of the Byzantine official. “I can’t help you. I’ll give you the money back, I’ll…”

  “In other words you went back on our bargain.”

  The “merchant” stepped away. Melekaniodes made a dash for the door.

  He saw a door open before him.

  Only it did not lead to freedom or even life.

  * * *

  Antimo looked at the fallen man across the threshold. He hadn’t even thrown the knife yet.

  “Treachery and betrayal are an affront to me,” said Hekate grimly.

  Antimo decided it was not the time to mention that those were major components of his trade. “A pity. I had hoped to force him to get us through the wall. We’d agreed on minimal destruction to the city and his promotion in the ranks of those who actually run it.”

  “I thought you wished its destruction,” said Hekate.

  Antimo shook his head. “You don’t know the Old Fox—Duke Enrico. He avoids destruction where possible. That is probably why he does not rule northern Italy—but the cities he does rule, love him.” Then he added: “And you heard him speak of the Venetians. They don’t want corpses, they want customers. You only loot a city once; you can get money out of it indefinitely if you keep it alive.”