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  Hekate stood a little taller. “Then under the same terms I will open the gate. I am a huntress, not a conqueror. And that would be some repayment for freeing my son.”

  Antimo looked at her for some time. And then slowly nodded. “I misunderstood who you were. I think you need to talk to the duke first though. I am loyal to him, but, Lady Hekate, you must deal carefully with him.”

  “He is not honest?” she asked, brows furrowing.

  “Honest as steel, but also clever as a fox,” Antimo replied. “He is one who will wring every advantage he can from a bargain. Not unlike a Venetian. He’ll also be sure he cannot be held to something he knows he cannot promise.”

  “He can deal fairly or choose at the crossroads, as that man in the doorway did,” said Hekate. “Life is full of crossroads. There are different ways, each with sure outcomes. But there is always another way and the choices are free.”

  That, decided Antimo, was a cryptic warning which, coming from Hekate, his master would be a fool to disregard.

  * * *

  But when they got back they found that the Old Fox was either before him in understanding her, or simply obdurate.

  “Lady Hekate. Firstly, we cannot expect no resistance to our attack. My first loyalty is to our own, and their lives cannot be expended to spare an enemy’s life. And secondly if we win, soldiery are not pawns on a chessboard. They can be ordered what to do and what not to do, but when cities fall, orders fail. And there is great bitterness at the massacre and enslavement of the Latins. Alexis must die. His treasures must go to pay for the lives of men and ships. And I will be hard pressed to stop all of the other looting and rapine. I will give you my word that the orders will be issued. I can promise the headsman’s axe to those who fail to obey, and the block and the knife for rapists. But it will happen. And they will hide it from my eyes, if not yours.”

  “I see what Antimo meant. That is a cleverer answer than a glib assurance.” She looked thoughtful for a brief while. “I will guide your soldiery. But they must be blindfolded. As a measure of trust.”

  “Then Antimo and I will lead them,” said the Old Fox calmly. “And you can tie our blindfolds on yourself.”

  “And me?” asked Benito.

  “You’ll be constructively engaged in an assault on the seawall a little earlier. So they’ll be tired and happy at having beaten you off,” said the Old Fox. “It’s time someone else had a share of the derring-do.”

  Chapter 45

  Constantinople

  The assault on the seawall began just after dusk. As usual, the repair work on the walls after the day’s cannonading was busily ongoing. The assault no chance of being undetected, but it had more of a chance of success than it was supposed to have, simply because the assumption was made that if Benito was to lead it, it must be more than it seemed. There had been a number of other such probes, lead by young officers who were willing to risk life and limb for the off chance of great glory, but this had to be different. Even if Benito told them the idea was to make a lot of noise and not get killed. It had been a mistake to include some of the evicted and enslaved Latins in the attack, Benito concluded. They were going to be a problem. They wanted vengeance, no matter what.

  It would take all of Benito’s authority and a few sharp blows to stop them getting either vengeance or death.

  * * *

  In the meanwhile Enrico Dell’este’s men waited in the encampment outside the Blachernae Quarter. In their armor, weapons ready…and blindfolds too. It had taken all of the Dell’este reputation to get them to do it, but at about midnight, they put on those blindfolds.

  “It is time,” said a sonorous, female voice that put atavistic chills up the backs of each and every one of them. “Do not look until I give you permission. The way is perilous for mortals.”

  “As we drilled it,” said the Old Fox, “Be steadfast, men. I’ll be first in the line. Now, link up. And forward.”

  And so, a hand on the man before them, they walked forward…away from the sortie-barricades and abatis of the camp, following blindly into the moonless darkness. It was a cloudy night and the dark, even without a blindfold, was thick and impenetrable. It was cold too, and there were…noises, in the distance. Then they walked on a solid floor of some kind. Some of them may have tried to see where they went, but it was dark and creaked. Once there had been a tunnel here. Perhaps there still was. Perhaps that was what they walked in. Nerves were on edge, as they passed onto a floor of solid stone. The air was damp, and smelled faintly of wet rock. From time to time, the Old Fox called back a word of encouragement; it echoed down the line, and they took heart from it.

  And then, they stopped.

  “You are inside the gate called Gryrolimne in Blachernae,” said Hekate. “There have been many gates here. You may remove your blindfolds.”

  “Thank you, Lady Hekate,” said Enrico with utmost politeness. The few soldiers he had with him were insufficient to take a city. But the district of Blachernae was in itself a small fortress. With that fallen, the men of Aragon, Genoa, Ferrara and Venice could march in. The men gathered themselves for a moment, and when they thought to look for that strange lady again, she was gone.

  In the darkness, even with Antimo’s excellent knowledge, it took some time to position the stopper groups, and await the changing of the guard. Oddly they met several patrols—who saluted politely to a larger force. Men always saw what they expected and wanted to see, unless you thrust their noses into it.

  Enrico led them up the steps that gave access to the chemin de ronde on the inner wall. It was guarded, of course, but the guard expected relief just then.

  He was quickly disabused—too quickly to issue any warning. From there it was a case of assaulting the tower door and they were inside the gate-house of the Blachernae. The door was the usual crossed ply of oaken planks studded with iron. It was a solid door. Less so after a small v-shaped keg of gunpowder was placed against it and heavy sacks of earth laid over that. Enrico had kept his explosive experiments close to his chest. But this was an effective way of directing force. It also muffled the noise and flash.

  Soon they were pouring into the tower. Half the defenders were still asleep. And none were going to get out. Enrico Dell’este made no attempt to restrain his men. His Latins wanted revenge against the Greeks, and revenge he gave them. Every one of defenders of the tower was butchered, many of them still groggy with sleep and unarmed.

  Wiser or simply more callous with years than his grandson, the Old Fox knew that there would be no way to completely prevent the savagery. There had been too much hatred built up by the atrocities committed by the Greeks—which, by now, were known to the entire invading force, even if they hadn’t experienced any of it themselves. Better to let the men vent their rage now, against other soldiers. Perhaps they’d be sated enough that they could be kept from inflicting that fury later, on women and children.

  * * *

  Three hours before the dawn the great gates swung open, while most of Constantinople slumbered, and Benito Valdosta and Count Alfons of Valderobes rode in. In the pale dawn the Lion, the Cross, and the flag Aragon flew proud over Blachernae, and the dark mass of the invading troops marched in good order toward the Great Palace near the Hippodrome. More men marched onto the curtain walls. There was some fighting on the streets, mostly with the Prasinoi and Rousioi Deme-gangs and the Varangians, rather than Byzantine troops, who had mostly been garrisoned near the walls, and whose barracks were now under attack. The people of Constantinople woke to the banners of conquest flying from the top of the third hill and on the forum of Constantine. Only the Hippodrome area and the Great Palace resisted, and even that could not hold.

  By late afternoon Enrico, Benito, Admiral Borana, Count Alfons and a dozen other officers filed past the guard to pray in the Hagia Sophia. Parts of the city burned. The invading troops were firefighting next to locals. But it had been a very minor battle compared to others that Constantinople had inflicted on itself.<
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  All in all, atrocities were few. Whether that was due to the grandfather’s sagacity in letting his troops slaughter everyone in the initial fight, or his grandson’s fierce discipline once the city was taken, could be debated. Dell’este’s own opinion, based on his decades-long experience at war, was that the key factor had simply been the ease of the conquest itself. For one thing, men led to easy victories tended to obey the commanders who had led them there. For another, their own casualties had been very light, so new hot rage had not been piled onto anger that had grown a little cold with time.

  And there was loot—always something that cheered up soldiers and improved their mood. True, Emperor Alexis had made his escape over the sea-wall in the dawn, taking much of the treasury with him. He was no Justinian, and obviously felt royal purple would not make a good shroud for himself.

  But he left much of the treasury behind, too, due to the haste with which he fled and the small numbers of retainers who fled with him. And leaving that aside, the Great Palace had enough gold plate alone to pay for the entire campaign—with plenty more in the way of gems, jewelry, precious metalwork—all the hoarded baubles of Byzantium’s centuries—to make every soldier a richer man than almost any of them had ever been in their lives.

  Here, too, Benito’s talent for organization played a part. A big part, in fact. He saw to it that special squads rounded up most of the loot, and did so in a reasonably disciplined manner, rather than just letting the men run wild. Then, also in an orderly manner, he distributed the booty evenly among all the soldiers. So there was no festering resentment on the part of men who felt they hadn’t gotten their just due, and Benito came out of the process as popular as probably any commander in the history of Venice.

  * * *

  “Well,” said Enrico, when it was all over. “This should get us a place in history anyway. How does it feel to have conquered the greatest city in Christendom, boy?”

  Benito yawned. “The place only looks like Mainz because of the mosaics,” he said.

  Enrico cuffed him, gently, about the ear. “Humph. Mainz. You’ve never seen it boy. I have. And the Hagia Sophia is one of the marvels of the world.”

  “It is quite a building,” admitted Benito

  “What’s wrong, boy?” asked the Old Fox, a little worried.

  “I miss my wife, and I miss my child, Grandfather. Not all the gold in the world can substitute for them.”

  Chapter 46

  Anatolia

  The Hands were unaccustomed to life in the country. Winter was no time to be sleeping under the cold stars here in the Anatolian highlands. For the first time for many of them, food was scarce. But the cities had become too dangerous to survive.

  All that was left of the group huddled together in the shelter of a rocky little valley, with only thorn trees for shelter. The sunlight was thin and did nothing to warm them. “I need you go to Trebizond,” said Kamil, Senior Master of the Blade.

  “No,” said the Senior Hand.

  That was something that the Master had never heard said to him. Not as a reply to direct order! He gaped, silenced for a long moment. “Kill him,” he said, angrily.

  No one moved.

  “I said ‘kill him.’ Do you know what happens to those who disobey?” The Master was accustomed to schooling his emotions, but this mutiny had ignited a fire of fury in him.

  “Who disobeys who? The Masters of Damascus or the Old Man of Alamut?” said the disrespectful Hand. “You want us to stick our heads into the viper’s nest again? No. I’ve heard that the Old Man is moving himself. You are dead meat walking.”

  The Master was silenced again. The Order had made infiltration a major way to make up for their small numbers. Some of the Masters had wondered if the Old Man—the Master of the Mountain in Alamut and their titular overlord—did the same, only…to them. He had few devotees in that mountain fastness with its walled garden. But they were trained not only in one of the disciplines of killing, but all. And a few extra.

  The Master took a deep breath “Then I will go myself.”

  “Good riddance. I am going back to my village,” said the Hand.

  “No, you are not, you disrespectful dog!” shouted Kamil, and launched himself at the Hand.

  He wasn’t the only one to leap into the fray. The beast that was the Baitini turned on itself, biting at its own vitals.

  * * *

  From a nearby hilltop, the Old Man of Alamut watched with grim satisfaction. Rumor and fear were tools that needed to be wielded well. He had been remiss in not keeping a closer eye, and a surer hand on the Masters. He’d thought their training would be enough. Bah. Fools who had been seduced by the peacock angel. They had to die. If any survived, let them go, either to crawl back to the villages they had come from and try and scatch out a living at work they no longer understood, or to play thugs to some tiny overlord—or to come back to him, where they would be purified, made stronger.

  As for the ones who died here, he would make a gift of their heads to the Ilkhan. Alamut played a long slow game. The hidden hand and the one in plain sight. The Mongols would be much weaker when he finally struck. And now, that would have to wait a little longer. Perhaps two generations. Not so long as all that.

  Aleppo

  The Grand Tour had taken the Ilkhan as far as Aleppo. Aleppo was a comfortable city, with reasonable amenities. The Ilkhan settled into a palace. He was unsure whose it was, and in truth, did not really care, though he would reward the owner because he wished to be seen as generous. He waited for news to come to him.

  And so it did, in the mouth of his grand vizier, who presented himself as was appropriate, the morning after the Progress had settled, as the Ilkhan was breaking his fast with almond rice and preserved fruit and tea.

  The grand vizier bowed low. “Interesting news, Ilkhan. We have reports here from a Venetian trader at Latakia that the Hellespont has been captured by a fleet from Venice, Genoa, Aragon and a few other western powers. Constantinople is under siege.”

  The Ilkhan quirked an eyebrow. “Interesting, indeed. Did you succeed in getting them to carry a new envoy to the Golden Horde, Orason?”

  The vizier bowed again. “Yes, as far as Constantinople. But I fear things become more complex, Great Khan. Do you remember the Franks I mentioned acting as intermediaries?”

  “Prince Manfred of Brittany.”

  The vizier coughed. “It appears they may have accompanied the false tarkhan to the lands of the Golden Horde. Or so my informant inferred. They were supposed to go overland to Rome, and then onward. But my informant was in Venice for two months and they were not seen. He spoke to others from Rome. No word of the prince there.”

  The Ilkhan rubbed his forehead. This was not welcome news. “So are we at war with the Holy Roman Empire? We share no borders but…”

  The vizier nodded and spoke the obvious. “But they could supply men and materiel to our enemies. I fear this may be true, in the worst case.”

  Still, it did not do to jump to conclusions. “Instruct our Emissary to the Golden Horde to investigate this most thoroughly and report to us.”

  “It shall be done, Great Khan.” The vizier bowed low. The Ilkhan gestured to a servant to renew his tea.

  “In the meanwhile I have some further news from Anatolia,” continued the vizier. “It appears that the Old Man of Alamut has played a role in dealing with the Baitini problem. Your generals are not alone in sending you heads.”

  Ilkhan Hotai pondered this. “The Old Man of Alamut…It is questionable just how far one can trust him, after our last experience with his acolytes.”

  The grand vizier appeared a little taken aback by this. It was the first time Hotai had ever seen him look even slightly put out by anything. But he answered correctly enough. “We continue to watch them, Great Khan.”

  Hotai said nothing. He resolved however to talk to General Malkis about his grand vizier. The Ilkhan might appear soft and civilized, but in his veins flowed the blood of th
e Great Khan, Genghis, who had been born into treachery and had it snapping at his heels for much of his life until he had the strength to crush it. Those who considered taking that road with him would do well not to forget that.

  Hotai never did.

  Chapter 47

  Constantinople

  Constantinople, great Constantinople, sitting astride the gateway between the west and the east. The key…and the bickering point.

  Alexis was out there, somewhere in the hinterland of Greece. Perhaps gathering adherents, perhaps wasting what substance he had left. Some of the Latins—Italians from Pisa, Genoa, Naples, Venice, Apulia, who had been evicted and attacked and enslaved in Alexis’s purge of the city—still wanted vengeance. Benito and Enrico were generally able to maintain disciple, and they prevented any large-scale atrocities from taking place. But there were constant little explosions of fury taking place, almost on a daily basis. Most of which, to make things worse, were being inflicted on people who were quite blameless in the matter. One of them had been a six-year-old boy, his skull crushed against a wall by a little group of Pisan soldiers who’d just come out of a nearby tavern. They’d been drunk, as much from the rage of retelling stories of Greek bestiality as from the wine they’d consumed. The poor child had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The Prasinoi and Rousioi Deme-gangs still wielded huge influence and were infiltrated into every aspect of life in the city. Breaking them could take years. They were used to being a law unto themselves.

  The eunuchs who ran the Byzantine Empire’s civil affairs, and those of the city, had had most of their administration in the city. Right now, they were not doing any administrating. “They want their protocols and ranks recognized,” said Di Tharra, who had been sent to negotiate with them. Even after two days the conquerors of Constantinople had realized that they needed a civic administration.