Burdens of the Dead Read online

  It was given to the sole Venetian spy to negotiate the surrender of the port.

  Upstream in the Dnieper, the galleys reached the shipyards at the confluence of the Lek river. Jagiellon’s shipyards, deep within his territory, did not have so much as a fortress or troops of cavalry to defend them. The galleys used the bow chasers to start the destruction. The men working in the shipyards were not soldiers, and fled immediately. Over the course of the next three hours, the galleys pounded the ribs and clad hulls to kindling and then put fire to that kindling. The heat of it was enough to melt the ice for quite some distance, but Venetians did not stay to appreciate it.

  The round ships together with the galleys sailed south again, toward the lands of the Golden Horde.

  Tarkhan Qishkai came on deck, looking across the breakers to the low green coast. Most of the fleet lay at anchor offshore there, and only three of the galliots made their way inwards. The water was discolored from the Danube outflow and the leadsman called from the bow as they plodded forward towards the delta. Already the blue truce pennants of the Ilkhan, and the Ilkhan’s own banner flew beside the Winged Lion of Venice. Finding a safe passage in was slow work, but Venice’s oarsmen had experience with the lagoon bar. The deeper water and stronger current were apparent with the lack of breakers, but mud and sand shifted.

  Soon they were in between banks grown with low willows, just starting to show leaf, and chattering and clattering rush-swamp meadows. The Venetians began to relax as the familiarity to their native lagoon eased some of the memories of battle. Benito just hoped that it wasn’t too soon.

  The first Mongol they encountered was not on horseback but on a punt, heading upstream. He first nosed his punt into the reeds, and then peered cautiously at the flags. The tarkhan sent one of his men to bellow in Mongol at the fellow—who came out and talked volubly at the tarkhan waving his hands about nearly as much as the average Venetian, bargaining.

  “He would like a tow,” the tarkhan translated. “The new Great Khan comes down to a place where the river has a big curve and a hill near where it divides into the delta. It is the meeting place for the clans from the White and Blue Horde. There is a gifting for a royal wedding there.”

  “It looks like you are too late to have any effect on the election of their new Great Khan, Tarkhan.”

  The Ilkhan emissary shrugged. “But hopefully not too late to deal with the traitor Borshar, M’Lord Valdosta. Can we toss the man a rope?”

  They rowed on, and after an hour they could see their goal. So, it seemed, could most of the other craft on the water. There were plenty of them, all heading that way.

  The place was chosen for its beauty. A rise in the ground changed the vegetation from the low willows and sedges to oaks, in between which the short grass was scattered with vast round white tents. There were throngs of people everywhere, it seemed. And there among them, the triple red crosses of the Order of the Holy Trinity.

  Benito greeted that sight with relief. Yes, Manfred and Erik had been all right, when they had sent the message. But that had been months ago. He peered across the water at two figures in the distance. No one could be that big and carrying that much steel and not be Manfred of Brittany. And by the white-blond head, Erik was next to him.

  Erik was holding onto a dark-haired woman. Benito shook his head, taking in the cascade of midnight hair, the high cheekbones, the jewelry—above all, the fact that she was holding onto Erik.

  An Erik that was smiling as Benito had not seen him smile since the death of Svanhild.

  Benito felt his eyes brim with tears, as he looked at the Icelander. The shadow that had hung over the man after Svanhild’s death was probably not gone entitely. But it was not making him desperately unhappy any more. In fact, he looked like a man who had discovered that life was a wonderful thing.

  The galliot nudged the muddy shore. Benito jumped down, not caring if he got wet and muddy, and waded in.

  Erik shook his head, still smiling a great big stupid smile and put an arm around him. “Ah, Benito. Here I am in my wedding finery and you’re all over mud.” The other arm stayed firmly around the girl. Erik held him away. “My young friend. I want you to meet my wife, Princess Bortai.”

  She smiled shyly. “Your mother is a tortoise,” she said in Frankish.

  When they had stopped Benito choking, he equipped them all with wine to toast the happy couple. Then Benito noticed Tulkun—walking toward a ramp that was being arranged to bring the tarkhan off the galliot. “Ah. The very fellow I need,” he said. “Do you know what has happened to his master?”

  Erik coughed. “I killed him.”

  “Well, now,” Benito said, his shoulders shaking. “Did anyone see you do this?”

  “The clan and subclan heads of the Golden Horde,” said Erik. “He needed killing, Benito. So…we have a problem, do we? Have I made difficulties for Manfred?”

  “Oh, no,” said Benito. He turned to Bortai. “Congratulations on a fine match, Princess. He’s not only handsome, but he’s rich too.”

  Erik rolled his eyes. “I am not rich. Bakkafloi is…”

  Benito interrupted, grinning like a coal-scuttle. “Bakka-whatever has nothing to do with it. The Ilkhan was seriously embarrassed by the so-called tarkhan’s actions. And seriously angry too. It appears that some of his friends and confederates have been making things difficult in the Ilkhan’s realms. To cut a long story short, Erik, there is a price on the head of ex-Tarkhan Borshar. I believe you’re the equivalent of ninety thousand ducats richer, Erik. That’s more than three times what the condotteire of Venice earns in a year.”

  Venice

  Maria poled her little boat slowly through the greening swamps. She’d talked to Julietta, the sea-woman, she’d spoken to Strega, she’d talked to swamp folk that were sometimes only half-sensible. She’d talked around and around, in circles, until sometimes she thought she would never get straight to her point—but none of these people ever came straight to a point. They had to sidle past the point, eye it carefully, walk around it, and test it for danger, not once, but many times, before they even approached it.

  But she had learned a lot more of patience in the Shadowed Halls than she would have believed. And, eventually, all that talking, all the careful distribution of bundles of old clothes, baskets of food, trading for swamp-herbs and the bits of flotsam that the very poorest collected in the hope it was valuable, and all the making of connections had come down to this.

  She poled her boat to the appointed place, and waited. Slowly, carefully, boats—and things that qualified as “boats” only because they floated—emerged from the reeds. All of them held women. Old. Middle aged. And—young. Many of them young. Some.. quite pretty, under the rags, the dirt, and the starvation.

  She began to talk.

  “This is how it was, a long time ago…”

  At first there was only listening. Then, there were nods. Then emphatic nods. Then…questions. And comments. One of which nearly had her laughing, and she had to work hard to smother it.

  “’Tis not a body’s ’feared of dyin’,” croaked one old crone. “’Tis a body’s ’feared there be naught on other side. Or naught worth goin’ to.” She shook her head. “Don’ like that Heaven priest keep’s talkin’ on. Don’ trust them angels. Too shiny. An’ no—” she moved her hips in a way that went far behind suggestive. Then she smacked her lips. “An’ never heard there was beer, either. But what you’re be sayin ‘bout…body can believe in that.”

  She came back, day after day. She didn’t exactly think of herself as a teacher, but…well, there was teaching. And studying, on her part. And asking Marco a great many questions about what she read. Out in the swamp, with the help of the tritons, the neiriads, and the other sea creatures, who were only too happy to find some place to put what they were excavating out of their new sanctuary, there came to be an island. And then, a building on it.

  That rose suspiciously quickly, and looked suspiciously good, far too good to h
ave been put together out of flotsam by unskilled hands. The tritons? Marco? Aidoneus? Well, it didn’t matter. There was ample room for the women, and a room for worship at the two altars—both adorned with ancient, barnacle-scarred statues the tritons had dredged up out of the swamp muck, statues with features so blurred they looked as if they had been formed naturally rather than carved by human hands. In the east, a woman with two dogs. In the west, a man, with another dog, this one with three heads.

  And then, one day, she came into the temple and found a single girl there, not praying, but gazing on the statue of Aidoneus. Examining, searching, as if she was trying to make out features. One of the poor, emaciated ones, who had, when Maria had first seen her, been so encrusted with dirt that it had been hard to see the color of her hair or skin.

  Now, she was clean. Regular meals had put flesh on the bones. Her hair was clean too—Strega-dark—and her eyes had sense in them, not the despair and near madness of the starving. And when Maria entered, the girl said, “You said, in the old, old days, He used to take a wife. You said that you’ve been that wife for four months of the year.”

  “Yes,” Maria said, cautiously.

  The girl turned to face her, and her eyes held determination, need, and resolve. “But you have a husband. Would He take someone else? For always? And not just part of the year?”

  Maria did not smile. The girl would probably misconstrue that. Besides, it didn’t do to seem too eager. Make the girl work for it. She would only value her bargain if she did.

  “Perhaps,” she said, gravely. “If you are worthy.”

  Epilogue

  It was full moon at the Milion. As always, he came alone, quietly, with a libation of wine, and flowers this time, and gifts for her dogs. Hekate watched. He was mortal and she had her path and he had his. She had her people. And the triton had told her that she now had a grim duty to see carried out—that the shield was passed to the son. She would have to talk to Benito Valdosta about that, when he came back here.

  But still she came and watched her worshipper.

  And this time he did not go.

  “I know you are there,” he said calmly. “I can feel it, even if I can’t see you.”

  She said nothing. He probably was aware of her. Aware that she kept her hand on the dogs to stop them going to greet him.

  “The fleet has been sighted off the Bosphorus. Tomorrow they’ll be here. Tomorrow, or very soon after, my master will want me to leave.” He waited a moment longer, then added, “Please.”

  She felt a pang. She almost stepped out from the cloak of night.

  “I do not want to leave without saying goodbye to you, and…to the dogs. I can explain to you, but all I can give them is my love. I would like to pat their heads and scratch them behind the ears, one last time.” She felt it in her, the emotion…and it wasn’t just, or even mostly, for her dogs.

  He was calling them in the magical fashion that he had, and they left her and went to him, licking his face as he knelt between them and held them. She saw why.

  He was crying.

  “What is wrong?” she asked, in spite of herself, in spite of knowing.

  He did not get up. Just held the dogs. Said nothing.

  “We met at the crossroads. You have your way. I have mine,” she said quietly. She had wept for others. She had not ever seen them weep for her.

  He looked up at her and nodded. He even mustered a sketch of a smile.

  “I watch the crossroads, the gates, the night and the hunt. You are a spy.” But her words sounded uncertain, even in her own ears.

  “I think…not any more,” he said. “I will speak to the duke. I have decided that I am finished. I have come to a crossroads myself, and I am taking another way.”

  “What will you do?” she asked, again in spite of herself.

  “Paint, I think. I have some money set aside. The duke paid well, and I can perhaps find a small quiet place near here to live and paint.” He looked up at her, then looked down at her dogs. “I could still come to your cross-roads.”

  “Even with your skill and your magic, this city is not safe for you. You are marked. They follow you even now.” She did not say that she had intervened. Twice.

  “A man makes choices,” he said, and in his words was a certainty, and knowledge, that this above all was something he wanted at any cost. “Life is a series of crossroads and blocked gates. Some of them you can go around. And some you can only wait until they open. I’ll take my chances.”

  Ripper lay down against him, and panted up at him.

  Hekate knew and understood now. He’d been waiting patiently for the gate to open. He’d wait until he died, if need be. And she was the guardian of the gates.

  “Get up,” she said, offering him a hand. “At the crossroads, you can always take the third way. There is an island far from here, where the Shardana, the last of my people, found shelter. It is very wild and very beautiful. They call it Sardinia. I am going there. Come with me.”

  He took her hand and got to his feet. She did not let go of his hand, and the dogs walked one on either side of them.

  The lady of crossroads chose a new path in the moonset. And this time she was not weeping and her dogs were not her only worshippers.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Aidoneus: God of the dead; husband of Maria Verrier for four months of the year.

  Alexis: Emperor of Byzantium.

  Androcles: a triton.

  Bartelozzi, Antimo: Agent and advisor to Enrico Dell’este.

  Beg, Iskander Illyrian chieftain, known as the Lord of the Mountains.

  Borana: Admiral of Genoa.

  Bortai, Princess, of the Hawk clan of the Mongol White Horde, Golden Horde.

  Borshar, Tarkhan (emissary) of the Ilkhan.

  Bourgo, Poulo: mercenary; creature of Chernobog.

  Calmi: Venetian lord, member of the Council of Ten.

  Chernobog: A demonic prince.

  Dell’este, Enrico, Duke of Ferrara: The Old Fox. One of Italy’s leading tacticians. Grandfather to Benito and Marco.

  Di Lamis, Augustino: Milanese count; condottiere; second cousin of the duke of Milan.

  Di Pantara, Marissa: governess of Alessia Verrier.

  Di Tharra, Carlos: Captain in the Genovese navy.

  Dorma, Petro: Doge of Venice.

  Hakkonsen, Erik: An Icelander, and bodyguard and mentor to Prince Manfred.

  Hekate: Goddess of the Crossroads, Opener of Gateways, Lady of the Night, Mistress of the Hunt.

  Hotai the Ineffable: Ilkhan of the Mongols.

  Jagiellon, Prince: master of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; possessed by the demon Chernobog.

  Lemnossa: Admiral of Venice.

  Magheretti, Michael: Podesta of Trebizond

  Manfred, Prince, Earl of Carnac, Marquis of Rennes, Baron of Ravensburg; nephew of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles Fredrik.

  Montescue, Lodovico: Head of the formerly powerful House Montescue.

  Poseidon: Earth-shaker, old god of the sea.

  Sforza, Carlo: condottiere, “Wolf of the North.”

  Turner, Francisco: doctor; soldier; friend of Marco Valdosta.

  Valdosta, Benito: grandson of the Duke of Ferrara; illegitimate son of Carlo Sforza.

  Valdosta, Katerina: wife of Marco.

  Valdosta, Marco: grandson of the Duke of Ferrara.

  Verrier, Maria: former canaler, married to Benito Valdosta eight months of the year and to Aidoneus during the winter.

  Verrier, Alessia: Daughter of Maria.

  Visconti, Fillipo Maria: Duke of Milan.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

 
; Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  PART II

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  PART III

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  PART IV

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  PART V

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  PART VI

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  PART VII

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Epilogue

  CAST OF CHARACTERS