Burdens of the Dead Read online

  Or to burn the city to ash and start again—which admittedly had its attractions.

  “And their old perks, of course,” said Enrico sourly. “The big problem is just to whom do they answer?”

  “You need a governor, rather than an oligarchy,” said Antimo. “The Prasinoi have been making advances to Admiral Borana, the Rousioi to Count Alfons.”

  “And the various merchant houses to Borana and me,” said Enrico. “For some reason they find me more appealing than Benito.”

  “They think he is too young and too flighty,” said Antimo, smiling. “Besides, all the seamen like him. You can’t associate with someone who is that popular with common seamen.”

  “My men think very highly of him,” said Captain Di Tharra, who seemed largely immune to sarcasm or irony. “And that does mean that some of Admiral Borana’s confidantes do treat Signor Valdosta with distrust.”

  “Which gets us no closer to running the city, and, after our agreement with Hekate, it does need running,” said Benito.

  “And besides, we need somewhere as a base for the winter,” said Enrico.

  Patrols now watched both sides of the Bosphorus, and the smaller cities and towns in nearby eastern Thrace had made their submissions, but the winter had bitten deep and hard. The sea was no place to be out on right now. Gray seas and whitecaps, wind, sleet, with interspersions of fog. They were stuck in Constantinople, with its restive population and fractious conquerors as the days dragged on. Benito found excuses to spend a fair amount of time in the dockyards hauling ships up, repairing and preparing. Talking to Di Tharra who also spent a fair amount of time overseeing the same. Fortunately, Admiral Borana was far too busy meddling in the affairs of Constantinople to notice what his underlings were doing.

  “I have had many conversations with Androcles, since you introduced me to the tritons,” Di Tharra informed him as they sat in a brief patch of weak sunlight.

  Benito wondered what Di Tharra, who seemed to have failed to grasp the basic elements of sarcasm, had in common with the sharp-tonged triton.

  “They are an ancient people, with long memories,” said Di Tharra.

  Ah. History. Or the triton seeing how much he could get Di Tharra to swallow, thought Benito, nodding.

  “He says we are descended from an ancient people, the Shardana people of the drowned lands, near here. Our tribes survived as sea-rovers and warriors for hire, until they were broken by one of Pharaohs and fled west settling on Sardinia. Before that…we fought with the gods and the sea itself, allied in those far off times to the tritons’ forefathers, that helped my people to withstand the sea’s rages,” said Di Tharra dreamily.

  “Ah.” Benito smiled. “So now you live in the middle of your island”

  “Yes, but I have seen the stone Nuraghe. They are exactly as the triton described. Only the ones he has seen lie lost beneath the waters of the Black Sea! He could hardly have seen the ones in the highlands of Sardinia. I think it must have been the very Biblical flood itself!”

  Or the triton is pulling your leg, thought Benito. “Well, my family go back to at least my father,” he said, thinking of that father, who made no secret of the fact that his father had been a commoner, a minor landowner.

  “But Valdosta is an ancient and honorable house!” protested Di Tharra, as quick to defend Benito from himself as anyone else. He was disarmingly loyal.

  Was Di Tharra the only man in all Italy who didn’t listen to gossip, or perhaps just didn’t believe in it? “That’s a…shall we say convenient fiction,” he said, a bit tersely. “Valdosta was married to my mother before he was killed, and she ended up as Carlo Sforza’s mistress. She ran off, and he ordered her killed.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean…”

  Benito shrugged. “Most people know the story. It doesn’t worry me any more.”

  A panting sailor came running up, “Milord! Come quickly! The city is burning and the streets are full of riot!”

  Captain Di Tharra leapt to his feet. Benito held up a hand. “Wait. Tell us a bit more,” he said to tailor. “We need to plan this, Di Tharra. This is their city and running into it like our tails were afire is probably exactly what someone wants. They must know more than half the men are out here, and our men man the walls.”

  The picture that emerged from the sailor showed that indeed someone must have planned this quite well. Most of the Latin forces had been scattered by the sounds of it. And this fellow had come curiously unchallenged out of the Neorian Gate to the harbor but had been pelted with rocks and chased when he had tried to cross the old Severian Wall to head for the Perama Gate and the Venetian Quarter.

  “The Severian Wall—I’ll bet they have some culverins up there. There were some not accounted for. They’d have a fine field of fire if we charge in via the Neorian Gate.” Benito took a deep breath. “I’ll take a thousand men via the Gate of the Drungaries. I am sure we hold that—I know the officer charged with it. And we’ll send messages over to Pera, and have men shipped up to Blachernae, and I want you to take some of your good Genovese sailors in via the Kontoskalian harbor. We have enough men and enough crews to sail around there.”

  * * *

  Marching his hastily marshaled men along the shore, Benito entered the gate of the Drungaries and they surged into the Venetian Quarter, picking up a growing following. At the Basilica of St. Nicolas they made their way up the hill, along the Makros Emblos to the Milion tetrapylon, and then, meeting with Di Tharra’s sailors there, went toward the ruins of the hippodrome. There they met with riot and burning buildings, but they were behind the rioters, and Benito was in no mood to be gentle. The Prasinoi and Rousioi Deme-gangs had expected the Latins to continue with the restraint they’d showed on capturing the city, but the Greeks soon discovered that they’d used up their ration of that gentleness.

  The city had the blood-letting they’d avoided. And this time, Benito was in a much worse position to hold back the frightened and vindictive victims of the last pogroms. He did try to keep the violence aimed as much as possible against the remnants of the gangs, and succeeded to a considerable degree. But, inevitably, but much of it spilled over onto the general populace, especially wherever gang members tried to hide among friends or relatives.

  He’d dealt with angry goddesses before. He’d just have to do it again.

  Chapter 48

  Constantinople

  The Black Brain studied the progress of his push to the south. The winter, of course was considerably harsher on the ship-yards on the Dnieper than it was in Constantinople. Chernobog had always despised human frailty with cold, but the ice on the river thwarted the movement of barges from December through to March. It slowed the material aspects of ship-building. Still, the slaves were driven hard. The Venetian and Genovese fleet outside Constantinople was small by comparison, though they did have more skill and experience at sea.

  The Black Brain turned his gaze southwards. And what he saw was not pleasing. The Golden Horde, divided and fighting still in their winter encampments, much gold spent and little gain made. And then, in a place which corresponded with the southern margins of the Black Sea…he was stopped.

  She showed no signs of tears. Instead she looked angry. Depths of emotion were strange to the Black Brain. Chernobog understood and used pain and terror. A desire for revenge had driven him on occasions. But anger was really something he had to draw on Jagiellon to understand at all.

  “No further,” she commanded. “I have destroyed your slave-eyes here, daemon, and these are my demesnes. Go, before I set my dogs on you.”

  Here, Chernobog saw her two companions as they really were: no mere red-eared hunting dogs but the hounds of the gates of Hades. Terrible vast beasts with eyes of flame and multiple heads and adamantine teeth. Even the likes of Chernobog did not want them tearing at him.

  She had her origins within humanity, so Chernobog drew on his human too. It was many years since Jagiellon had had to exercise diplomacy but he had once done so. He
made his voice silky, strived to look conciliatory. “You look troubled, Hekate. What is it that frets you?”

  She lost a little of her fury. At him, at least. He had managed to deflect her, and divide her anger. “They kill each other. They burn and violate. Even those who foreswore such violence for my aid. They lied to me. I am not easily lied to.”

  Chernobog made as if to sigh. “Humans. They are deceptive. Especially the ones from Venice.”

  Hekate grounded her harpoon, and her eyes smoldered. “I had thought this Valdosta was an honorable man. They are allied with the ancient Lion.”

  “Benito Valdosta. Ah yes.” Chernobog nodded. “I know him. No wonder he could deceive you. He has magical help from another power. An old friend of yours. The Earth Shaker and Master of the Sea.”

  “You lie, Chernobog. Go back to your northern forest fastness.” But there was doubt there, hidden under that attempt at certainty. He could sense it.

  “Test him,” said Chernobog. “See if he does not indeed have an alliance with the children of Poseidon, the tritons. It is not wise to trust mortals.”

  “I will do this. I will put him to the magics of truth. Even Poseidon cannot resist that. Now get away, before I loose the dogs and my spear,” said Hekate, the anger rising in her again.

  “If I speak truly, will you consider speech with me again? We have interests in common.” Deception was less risky than open conflict. Chernobog was sure he could defeat this old goddess, but not easily and not without harm done to himself. In addition to her two monstrous companions, she had certain objects of power and still drew from deep wells in this, her once-homeland. And if he were wounded and weakened, there were other dark powers questing this plane. There was no honor among such powers, only endless striving: to devour, lest one be devoured.

  “Yes. Now go,” she said.

  So he went, well pleased with his work.

  * * *

  “I think,” said Benito to Antimo Bartelozzi, when more attention was finally being turned to putting out fires than dealing with the mobs, “That I need to talk to your girlfriend.” He leaned against the wheel of an overturned cart, and regarded Antimo with a steady, if weary, gaze.

  Antimo was a middle-aged man with a very ordinary face and a normally placid expression. He flushed and looked anything but placid. “She’s above my touch, M’Lord. You know as I do, now, what she is.”

  Benito nodded. “Which is why I need to talk to her. If life with Maria has taught me anything, it is that talking sooner is better than talking later, and it’s much better if you go to her than waiting until she comes looking. How do you find her?”

  Antimo coughed. “Usually, I don’t. Usually, she finds me. She did say that I could call on her at crossroads., with a libation.”

  “That makes sense.” Benito cast around him for a suitable crossroads. “That tetrapylon—the Milion—must be the biggest crossroads around here.” The tall double arches and their dome were the meeting of the city’s major roads and, while neglected and cracked, they were still one of the major landmarks. “I’ll get some wine.”

  “I have a wineskin, M’Lord. I will accompany you,” said the duke of Ferrara’s chief agent.

  Benito could not resist a little teasing as he pushed himself up off the wheel and prepared to do a bit of walking. “As you said, Antimo, she’s not exactly your girlfriend.”

  “I am content to worship from afar, M’Lord,” said Antimo, with an odd humility. “But I have a loyalty to you because of your family, and a loyalty to her. She saved my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time.”

  Benito clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, let’s go then. I’d guess at order being well enough restored for us not to need an escort.”

  So they went to the Milion, where beneath its decaying brickwork, after spilling a little wine, Benito found that he’d waited too long not confront an incandescently angry Hekate. She pointed the bone harpoon at him before he could even address her properly, and then produced a small wooden beaker. “Drink this.”

  Benito was far too used to Maria to argue. He took it, and drank it. “What was it?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It tasted like small-beer laced with herbs…mint, and rosemary, and something else. It was actually quite pleasant for something he had to drink.

  “Kykeon. The holy drink. You will see the unseen. And you will be constrained by the magics and virtues of holy plants to speak faithfully and only the truth. I am sick of the lies of men.”

  Well. At least it wasn’t poison.

  Whatever this kykeon was, it was certainly potent. Benito could see blurred lines around things—and strange shapes, and dark eyes, peering and leering at him from behind pillars that wavered and shadowy fountains that played. A procession of horses, ridden without saddles by swarthy men in mailed skirts rode transparently and triumphally through the arch. And there sitting under a distant flowering tree was Maria. His Maria looking at him…he began to walk to her. A tall woman, her flowing wavy dark tresses crowned with a diadem of finely wrought gold and jet took his hand in a grip of iron, as hard as winter. “Stop. First you will deal with me and my questions, and you will answer me truthfully.”

  He blinked at her. “I would do that anyway. Lies are best saved for when you really need them, and I know better than to lie to a goddess.” He was a little distracted. Maria had stood up and walked now toward him, looking puzzled.

  “You will need more than lies if I find you have deceived me. Speak now. Have you some compact with the children of Poseidon?” She really was very angry, and he could not imagine why.

  “Pegasus. I told you…” he began

  She slapped him, hard enough to rock his head back, and to clear it slightly. “Not my son. Poseidon’s sea-soldiers. The tritons.”

  “Well, yes. They guide our ships,” said Benito. Why should that matter?

  “Ssssso!” she hissed. The dark waves of hair seemed to stand out in a nimbus around her head. “You lied.” she began to raise the harpoon and the dogs snarled.

  “I didn’t!” protested Benito. “You never asked about the tritons! Why should that—”

  “You said Poseidon was a helpless old man. Yet you truck with his offspring. You made a deal with him to destroy me. He let you take my Pegasus!”

  The strange drink, and possibly the nearness of death and the nearing of Maria, made him interrupt her tirade. “He damned well didn’t! I tricked him. Besides, he’s a weak and helpless old man, and I’d never seen him in my life before that day.”

  “You lie!” she screamed. She was about to plunge the harpoon into him, and he could not think of how to stop her or dodge in time.

  Maria grabbed her arm.

  “How dare you? How dare you, mortal?” Hekate raged. They wrestled for the harpoon.

  Maria still had canaler shoulders. She held Hekate’s arms. “And you think I would let you stab Benito? Think again! Come to your senses, and act like a goddess and not a fishwife! You fool, he can’t lie. You gave him that drink.”

  Benito saw that Aidoneus had appeared too. “I cannot let you harm my lady, Goddess of the Crossroads, Opener of Gateways, Lady of the Night, Mistress of the Hunt. She only says what should be evident to you.”

  Hekate froze.

  “My compact with the tritons is because they are guardians to my daughter,” said Benito. “My brother helped me make the pact with them in exchange for a sanctuary, and maybe a little because they like me.”

  Benito was by no means pleased to see Aidoneus, let alone having to feel grateful to him for helping Maria, “You can ask the Lion, if you don’t believe me. Anyway, from what they’ve said they have no love for Poseidon themselves. If I remember it right, Androcles told me that Poseidon took Triton’s Conch in punishment because he dared to stand up to his father about his mother. I think maybe he might have killed Triton too, but I’m not sure. I can tell you this much, there wasn’t so much as a hint or fin or triton scale anywhere near whe
re Poseidon is. They’ve left him alone to rot.”

  Hekate lowered the harpoon; looking faintly guilty. “Amphitrite tried to warn me. I assumed she was just bitter. I…was at fault too, there.”

  Benito nodded. “Poseidon sank her palace in the quarrel, or that is what Androcles told me.”

  “And I was there when Benito was making his deal with the tritons,” said Maria. “They wanted a piece of the Lagoon to themselves for their help. Nothing to do with that old god. Who did you hear that story from anyway?”

  Hekate looked at her. Then she ground her teeth audibly before speaking in a low, dangerous voice. “From the black demon of the northlands. The one you call Chernobog. Curse him! I see now what this was. He sought to deceive me. To make me kill you and destroy your people, as Poseidon destroyed mine. He has been meddling here, and to the east. Well, that is the end of it. He will cross my demesnes no more.” She turned to Benito. “I have done you a great wrong. I almost did worse. I make my apology, to you and the lady of the Lord of the Cold Halls. And I am at your call to make amends and restitution.”

  This brew of hers had definitely affected his judgement. “For a startl, you can stop calling Maria Aidoneus’s Lady. She’s Maria. And she’s only his for four months of the year. The rest of the time she’s mine. Or I’m hers. I’m hers all of the time.”

  Hekate turned her gaze on the Lord of the Dead and Maria. “Demeter’s bargain. Have you learned nothing, Aidoneus?”

  The god shrugged. “I need living mortals in my cold halls. They alone can bring life and warmth. They stir the ancient tree to life and seed. You know how important that is.”

  “I am the mistress of crossroads and gates. There are choices, and there is always another way.” Hekate bit her lip. “I think I was too foolish to see that myself, sometimes, so I will not hold it against you, Lord of the Cold Halls. But you need to think anew. Build a new road. I am…coming to terms with that myself.”