The Guns of Ivrea Read online

  “Then… we may trade?”

  Atalapah nodded. “Yes, Danamis, son of Danamis.” He turned and spoke to one of his men, who in turn moved to the side of the ship and signalled his comrades. Tetch moved alongside Danamis to whisper, “Just as well I didn’t call him ugly. Tell me you knew they could speak as men.”

  “I did not. They did not do so last time.”

  “I wonder what else they know.”

  A few moments later two more mer came up over the side, bearing a new arrival. This time a gasp exploded from the crew and the mer men-at-arms stepped forward, swords in front to protect their charge. Boldly, she pushed her protectors aside and stepped forward next to Atalapah. A mermaid. Danamis had not even imagined he would ever see one. He awkwardly bowed in acknowledgement. She was nearly naked, only her loins covered in the same fashion as the others. Her breasts, pointed and firm, were bared to the world and the hundred men who watched, unsure whether to be repulsed or aroused. Mermaids were certainly the comelier of their kind. Blue-grey as the menfolk but not as tall, her features were far gentler, eyes more human—almost violet; a nose and dark lips where the men had almost none, and long tresses of white-blonde hair. Just as the old legends told.

  “By all the saints,” muttered Tetch.

  Her voice was like liquid silver. “I am the daughter of Atalapah. I am named Citala. I speak your tongue better than he.” She paused and moved to behold the sacks upon the deck. “Five bundles of myrra leaf? No more than that?”

  Danamis stuttered again. “It… it was difficult enough to get even this, my… lady.”

  Her eyes narrowed, purplish lips pursing in frustration. “Then the trade will be… amended. Three chests only.” She raised an arm and, at this command, the merbehind her pulled on sea grass ropes that had been flung up over the rail. Danamis could see the soldiers in the fo’c’sle tensing, crossbows shifting as they sensed the trade might be about to go awry. He turned and thrust out his arm. “Damn you, dogs! Hold fast there!”

  Tetch followed his lead. He rounded on those behind him, pushing men backwards and bellowing. “You heard your captain! We are here to trade in peace so stand down or I’ll have your heads!”

  The mermaid showed no fear or apprehension despite the tension on deck. She stood tall, emotionless, and almost regal, and she signalled the mer men-at-arms to continue their labours. Soon they bore up three blackened and splintered wood caskets, two feet wide and one deep, lashed with sea grass to stop them from spilling. These were placed on the deck at Danamis’s feet. The mermaid gestured to him to open one. Two dozen helmeted heads in the fo’c’sle craned to get a look as Danamis drew his dagger and knelt to cut the lashings. The lid disintegrated as he lifted it, for in truth it had lain waterlogged for years at the bottom of the sea. Even after all that time in the bowels of a shipwreck, lying in the deepest fathoms, as he pulled away the lid the gold coin within sparkled and blazed in the burning rays of the sun. It was brimming. As were the other two caskets. Coin and gemstones both.

  Atalapah stepped forward and placed his arm about his daughter. “Good enough, Danamis?”

  Danamis looked down upon the treasure—more than sufficient to buy three new ships and the crews to sail them—and then over to the Mer chieftain.

  “Indeed. Good enough. The bargain is struck.”

  The mer chieftain waved his arm and the sacks of myrra leaf were effortlessly hefted by the others.

  “They actually like chewing that leaf?” muttered Tetch. “Tried it once in the hills. Nearly split my skull in two from the inside.”

  “They like the leaf the way you like your wine, uncle” said Danamis. “Too much.”

  They watched as the sacks were thrown over the side and into the sea for the other Mer to drag down to the depths. Tetch put his hands on his hips. “I cannot even figure out how they can breathe air never mind chew myrra.”

  Atalapah turned to face Danamis again. “More trade in two moons. In this place.”

  Danamis nodded. “I will be here.” But he was looking at the mermaid. She was smiling at him, eyes and cheeks creasing in good humour; a spontaneous reaction and with an almost strange affection. How could they look so different from their menfolk?

  When the crossbow bolt struck the deck at her feet, Danamis felt the world hang for a moment, suspended like the time between a lit taper and the explosion of the gun. But he was already moving forward as the second bolt struck. It hit the thigh of a mer man-at-arms and his cry was a high-pitched strangled croak. Danamis threw himself in front of Atalapah who had already folded himself over his daughter, to shield them both. He caught a glimpse of the maid—eyes wide in surprise and then narrowed in rage. He wheeled and spread his arms wide, crying “Hold!” at the top of his lungs. The archers in the fo’c’sle were pointing up and away to the larboard side of the ship as cries echoed across the deck of Royal Grace. And Danamis found himself looking across to the crow’s nest on the mainmast of Firedrake. For that was from where the shots had come. All was a swirl of madness and shouting men. Tetch’s face was purple, his bellowing curses booming across the vessel.

  Danamis turned again to see the mer plunging over the side, father and daughter first and then the others supporting their wounded comrade. It had all lasted but seconds. Now there was silence as he surveyed the faces of his sailors and soldiers. Fear, confusion, disbelief. Danamis’s arm shot out towards Firedrake, his hand reaching as if to pluck the crow’s nest from off the mast and crush it in his grasp. “Bring me those men!”

  ROYAL GRACE BOBBED and rolled in the gentle swell, the afternoon sun beating down upon the deck. All the ship’s company was arrayed on deck from stem to stern. Firedrake was tied fast abeam, all her complement lining the railings of main deck and fo’c’sle. Even poor Salamander, which had missed it all, was only half a cable length away, her deck enveloped in silence except for the creaking of stays and lines. Two crossbowmen were side by side upon their knees on the deck, faces bloodied. Captain Tetch jerked one’s head up by a handful of lank and sweaty hair. Tetch hefted his blade in the other and looked over to Danamis. He then tossed the sword upwards lightly and reversed it. He extended it to Danamis.

  “Your law and your right, Admiral,” he said quietly.

  Danamis looked down at the pair, disgusted and still oblivious as to why they had done what they had. These two simpletons had ruined it all. Tetch gave the man’s head a vigorous shake. “Who’s running this venture, you little piece of dung!” The man was drooling, eyes tightly shut. But the other next to him spoke up, a broken voice stuffed full with rage.

  “Blasphemy!” he spat out. “Blasphemy! And dead men’s gold! Taken from their graves by heathen fishmen!”

  Danamis moved a step closer to the bowman, slowly drawing out his own falchion from its scabbard. He handed Tetch’s sword back to him. A low burble moved among the crew. And then someone cried out, whether on Grace or Firedrake Danamis knew not. “Dead men’s gold!”

  “Belay that!” bellowed Tetch. “Goddamn you, I’ll rip you if I hear another word!”

  The crossbowman looked up at Danamis with one remaining good eye, the other swollen shut. “Goddamn blasphemy it is.” His voice was quiet and unafraid. “Your soul is damned and I curse you and your house.”

  Danamis’s jaw clenched. His sword arm flew back and then delivered the blow with all the force his anger could impart. The man’s arms shot out in a spasm, his head flopping to the side and rolling onto his shoulder, the cut nearly severing it completely. A great gout of blood fountained upward, pulsing, covering Danamis and the other shivering would-be assassin. A few nervous coughs echoed from castle to castle.

  Danamis’s sword clattered to the deck as he moved to reach for a discarded helm that lay on the planks. Tetch stood back as Danamis rammed it down upon the head of the remaining crossbowman then lifted the whimpering wretch by the back of his gorget and coat of plates and marched him to the side. With a grunt of rage he upended him and tossed him
into the sea where he sank so fast not even a single bubble rose up.

  Danamis turned to face his crew, wiping his bloodied sleeve across his mouth. “Get this deck cleared and prepare to make sail!”

  Gregorvero stood expressionless, his normally scarlet face near ashen. Tetch looked at Danamis, the slightest hint of a grin on his lips. “Palestro?”

  “Aye, Palestro.” And he scooped up his dripping falchion before moving to the stern, the crew receding before him. As he pushed his way back to his cabin, his mind raced to think of a way he could salvage the trade that had made him rich. And he cursed himself for thinking he could have gotten away with it for so long by merely paying off those around him. For some men, gold was not enough.

  Three

  CAPTAIN JULIANUS STRYKAR yanked hard on his reins, pulling his mount up so sharp that those following behind nearly careened into one another since they were, for the most part, all dozing in the saddle.

  “Goddamn you!” he said to his lieutenant. “How many times do I have to say no? I swear you’re worse than children, you lot!”

  Lieutenant Poule was instantly apologetic. “No disrespect, Captain. It’s just that we’re close to the city. Some of the men want to make… pilgrimage.”

  Strykar let out a such a roar of laughter it belied his outrage. “Pilgrimage? This lot?” He jerked his thumb back towards the three hundred and ninety soldiers that trailed behind. “Do you really think I just stopped sucking at my mother’s tit? Count Malvolio graciously keeps us on a very long leash as it is. If this company stops in Livorna we might not see half of them back on the road again the next day.”

  “Well…” said Poule, “and by your leave, sir, I reckon if we were to make camp in the valley below the town walls, have the field sergeants set up pickets and let only a few out at a time—”

  Strykar’s scraggly-bearded face leaned in towards Poule, whose mouth slammed shut with a clack. “You really do want me to knock your head in, don’t you?”

  The lieutenant’s chin drooped as he cinched up his reins.

  Captain Strykar resumed his pace and the others in the column followed suit. “We’ll find a good place to make camp off the road ahead when the time is right,” he said. “It’ll be a place where the only unhealthy diversion on offer will be you lot buggering each other. No wine and no whores… At least no new ones.” One could never forget the gaggle of hangers-on that piggy-backed in the baggage carts.

  He chuckled to himself. “As a matter of fact, we’ll send the quartermaster up ahead now to find a suitable campsite.” And he turned in the saddle and despatched a rider who was sweating heavily in the midday heat in his padded doublet, breastplate, and sallet helm. Strykar grunted as he swung his steel round shield further over on his back. He shook his head. “Pilgrimage!”

  The company rode on. They were a day out of the mountain passes to the north where the Duchy of Maresto bordered the territory of the Free City of Ivrea. Patrolling the hinterlands showed the Count and his employer, the Duke, that he had initiative (unlike the heavy cavalry of their company who squatted in Maresto city, polishing their armour and waiting for the next war). It was also the perfect pretext for him to carry on his personal commerce. A trade that made him a valuable middleman indeed.

  Strykar caught wind of a few grumbled curses as they reached the crossroads where a left fork and a rising road led to the ancient holy city of Livorna. But the column carried on, following the wide road as it dipped down, the forest giving way ahead to rolling hills and a gentle golden plain that led eventually to the sea. As he was about to chastise Poule for no particular reason other than for his own diversion, he saw a large bundle of grey rags roll out of the bramble and bracken to his left, thirty feet ahead. He raised an arm to halt the column, even as the bundle came to life: a man, a holy man, staggered to his feet, arms stretching out to steady himself. Poule shot a look of pure confusion over to his captain but before either could say a word or give a command, at least a dozen riders appeared ahead, riding full tilt. From where the monk had tumbled out into the road, four crimson-sashed men-at-arms, swords drawn, extricated themselves from the clinging undergrowth and poured into the open. The lead soldier had already grabbed the monk by the back of his cowl before he noticed he had an audience of a considerable number of mounted rondelieri—sword and buckler men—standing still in their saddles mouths gaping. He froze in his place, sword arm extended.

  Strykar recognised the men and the riders that had now reined-in up ahead. Temple guard. In an instant he turned and gestured to his flanking crossbowman. The crossbowman deftly swung up the already spanned weapon as he reached to his saddlebow and drew out a bolt from his pouch. In but a moment it was laid in the dark ash stock which he then tucked in tightly to his shoulder. The hapless monk was pushed to his knees and the cloaked guardsman cranked his sword for a full arcing blow. But his eyes swiftly took in that he was in the sights of the crossbowman and he hesitated. Strykar gently kicked his horse and moved forward, closing the distance.

  “Since when are monks open sport?” His voice carried beyond the now worried guardsman and over to the man’s mounted comrades.

  An officer in blackened plate and chainmail answered Strykar calmly. “When they are defilers of the Holy Temple—and murderers.”

  Strykar laughed and leaned forward in his saddle. “Surely you can find some other young monk to fondle. What’s he done?”

  The front line of the guardsmen edged forward, cursing loudly, until their captain held up his hand. “This is no business of an aventura. The man is a murderer who has had sentence of death passed upon him. So stand aside.”

  Strykar could hear his men in the front files drawing steel. “I think you got it backwards. Livorna is that way. The Temple guard has no authority here on the Duke’s road.” Strykar could see the captain’s eyes looking past him, counting the numbers and probably also noticing other crossbowmen raising their weapons. “Whereas we aventuri—or to be more exact, we of Count Malvolio’s free company—have every authority to do as we please outside Livorna.”

  The guardsman had already calculated his odds but tried again anyway. There was a lot riding on this one. “The High Priest knows the Duke Alonso very well. And if you make incident here I reckon your next pillow will be on the scaffold in the square at Maresto. End this and give us the monk.”

  Strykar smiled as he slowly drew his blade from its scabbard. “But we need a monk. Ours died a few months ago.” A rumble of laughter broke out among the men of the Black Rose who were close enough to hear the exchange.

  The captain of the Temple guard again looked beyond Strykar and took in the levelled crossbows and hefted swords. More than that, he could see the looks of absolute calm—almost insouciance—on the faces of the mercenaries. There was a pause and then the mount at his left farted loudly, a rather drawn out affair. Again a ripple of laughter spilled from the men of the Black Rose. The captain of the guard cursed under his breath and called over to his man, still gripping the ripped and mud-stained cassock and the shivering youth inside it. “Release him!” The order was barked with an exasperated fury.

  “Sir?”

  “Release him, goddamn you!” The soldier lowered his sword, pushed the monk over into a heap, and backed away towards his compatriots, all the while staring down Strykar. The four soldiers faded into the mass of horsemen, pulled up onto the cruppers of their comrades. The captain of the guard gave Strykar one last look of contempt and then jerked his reins, nearly snapping his horse’s neck and scattering the men around him. They pounded up the road from where they had come.

  Strykar leaned over his saddle and peered into the grey pile of rags below him. And Acquel, his face covered in scratches, welts, black mud and dried blood, looked up into the relatively clean but mildly astonished face of his saviour.

  REFRESHED BY A mug of water but still looking like a beggar (despite his tonsure, which had yet to grow out), Acquel stood in front of Captain Strykar who was seat
ed on a three-legged camp stool as tents were noisily hoisted around them. The company had found a large field by very late that summer’s afternoon, far enough away from Livorna to make a Temple guard assault less likely. Strykar leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him. He had not yet taken off his steel breastplate and cuisses but gauntlets and helm lay tossed at his feet.

  “Now, monk, remind me why I prevented your head being lopped and kicked into the road. I think it was because I was intrigued to know what a monk could possibly do to so piss off the Temple priests.” Strykar waved to a boy to bring him over a large silver basin and then proceeded to splash his face and his lank greasy hair. He yanked the boy’s tunic and dried his face with a quick swipe. “I mean, thieving from the Holy Temple I might understand but murder. That’s a bit dramatic for a greyrobe.”

  Acquel had by this time stopped shaking, allowing only an occasional weak shudder of his shoulders. He had run and hid for hours only to find the Guard still pursuing him and gaining. Now, as he stood before Strykar, his wits regained, he realised he must have been easy prey to track with his bumbling branch-breaking tear through the forest. He was now in an altogether different but equally dangerous situation than his flight from the guardsmen. His eyes darted nervously around him, taking in the laughing and cursing soldiers as they made camp. These kinds of men he had never known, never spoken with or even robbed from. He had to be careful and measure each word. He clasped his hands contritely in front of him, his chin practically touching his chest. “I am no murderer, sir. I’ve not harmed a soul.”

  “So the guard are liars?”

  Acquel knew that he had to be guilty of something. Why else would a squadron be sent in pursuit of him? Admit to thievery he could, but that would lead to even more explanation. He could almost feel the amulet and its golden chain weighing heavy in the deep pocket of his cassock. That it was still there was amazing in its own right, given his scrambles over tiled roofs, a drop of some twenty feet over the city wall and a tumble into the stinking ditch on the other side. The headlong rush down the sloping forest floor had nearly killed him and he had spent more time crawling than running. He looked at his feet as his mind raced to come up with an answer. One of his sandals was missing. Magister Kodoris could never have known that he had taken the amulet. The Magister, who he had placed blind trust in, had probably just heaped on as many plausible outrages as possible to justify his summary execution. But that didn’t matter now. He could never tell them what he had seen in the saint’s tomb but he could admit his mercenary actions there.