Siege (10 page)

William surged forward, stepping in front of Carlo’s horse. ‘It is you, you bastard!’ he screamed. ‘I am going to kill you!’

The horse reared, almost unseating Carlo. He recovered and stared contemptuously at William. ‘You seem to have lost your wits, boy,’ he said in accented English. ‘I have never seen you before in my life. Now get out of my way.’ He slashed his riding whip across William’s face, drawing blood.

William drew his dagger and stood his ground. ‘You are a murderer,’ he spat. ‘You stabbed my uncle in the back. You betrayed us to the Turks.’

‘I do not take kindly to being insulted, especially by common English scum like you,’ Carlo snarled and again sent his riding whip slashing towards William’s face. William raised his dagger and sliced the whip neatly in two. ‘I will have your head for that!’ Carlo roared, drawing his sword.

Longo stepped between Carlo and William. ‘I am Longo Giustiniani, and this boy is under my protection. If you have a quarrel with him, then you have a quarrel with me.’

Carlo went white at the mention of Longo’s name. ‘I did not know the boy was in your service, Signor Giustiniani. But he has insulted me and drawn on me. I demand justice.’

‘If you want justice, then you will have to take it from me,’ Longo said.

Carlo hesitated. His honour had been challenged, but clearly
he did not wish to fight Longo. Finally he nodded. ‘So be it. I shall send someone to arrange the details.’

‘No,’ William insisted. ‘I will fight for myself.’

‘Quiet, William,’ Longo ordered. ‘You do not know what you are doing.’

William ignored him. Carlo had killed his friends, and William had sworn to make him pay. He turned to Carlo and said in broken Italian, ‘I you fight. I.’

Carlo smirked. ‘I would as soon wipe my boots with him as fight this commoner,’ he said. ‘But the boy seems to need a lesson in manners. I will meet him tomorrow. My man will be at your house presently. Good-day, Signor Giustiniani.’

Carlo’s second, his portly brother Paolo, arrived at the
palazzo
no more than an hour later and met with Longo. They quickly agreed to terms: first light, the Piazza di Sarzano, to the death.

Longo found William and Tristo eating at a table in the courtyard, and he stopped to watch them. Tristo was tucking into a heaping plate of vermicelli covered in butter, while William held up a long thin noodle, eyeing it sceptically. ‘Looks like a worm,’ he noted. ‘What do you call it again?’

‘
La pasta
.’

‘
La pasta
,’ William repeated and ate the noodle, chewing carefully. ‘Not bad.’ He reached for a cup and sniffed at the contents.

‘
Il vino
,’ Tristo told him.

William took a sip and grimaced. ‘Haven’t you got any beer?’

Tristo laughed. ‘You’ll learn to like it, boy. Believe me.’ William took another sip and grimaced again.

‘Don’t go getting him drunk, Tristo. He’ll need a clear head tomorrow,’ Longo called as he approached. ‘William, we have agreed to terms. The duel will be to the death.’ Longo studied William’s face for any sign of fear, but saw none. ‘Have you ever fought with a short sword?’ Longo asked him.

‘Just daggers, mostly.’

‘Take a hold of this, then,’ Longo said. He handed William a short sword – a three-foot thin blade with shallow edges, a light sword more for stabbing than for cutting. William took it and slashed the air before him.

‘It’s so long. Why do they call it a short sword?’

‘The sword is named by the length of its handle,’ Longo told him.

‘Well, so long as it’s sharp.’ William practised another attack, ducking low and raking his sword through the air, where his foe’s knees would be. The boy used the sword like a huge dagger. He had no idea of formal sword fighting.

‘I have seen Carlo fight,’ Tristo said grimly. ‘He’s a deadly hand with a sword. I watched him make short work of the youngest Spinola brother some years ago.’

‘He has a reputation,’ Longo agreed with a nod. What’s more, William had to be giving away at least sixty pounds to Carlo. ‘If you wish, William, I can put you on a ship tonight. You would be in Chios in a few months’ time. There would be no shame in it. Carlo is a nobleman, and he was wrong to accept a commoner’s challenge.’

William ran his hand along his cheek, feeling the fresh cut that Grimaldi’s whip had left. ‘I will fight him. I am not afraid.’

‘Very well,’ Longo said. ‘I suggest you get some sleep. I will see you in the morning.’

Sunrise found Longo and William already at the Piazza di Sarzano, their horses tethered out of the chill wind, in the lee of the old city wall. They stood in the centre of the cobbled square, their breath steaming and their cloaks wrapped tightly about them. Behind them rose the Church of San Salvatore, its facade marked by four towering columns, numerous frescos and an odd stained-glass window shaped like an enormous hat.

The two Grimaldi brothers arrived on horseback and tethered their horses in the shelter of the wall. All four men met in the centre of the square. The air was thick with moisture off the
nearby sea and the light was still dim. The city was quiet, still sleeping. They spoke softly, as if afraid to upset the calm.

‘Choose your sword,’ Longo said, handing Paolo the two blades. He hefted them, and finding them equal, handed one of them to Carlo, who took it and slashed at the air several times to judge the sword’s balance. Carlo nodded his satisfaction. Longo handed the other sword to William. ‘You each know the terms,’ Longo said. ‘To the death. No quarter will be sought or given.’ William and Carlo each nodded. ‘You may take your places, then.’ Longo turned to William. ‘Keep your guard up, and God save you.’ Longo and Paolo stepped away to the edge of the square, while William and Carlo squared off some ten feet apart. William looked pitifully thin and young across from the much taller, stronger Carlo.

‘Not much of a contest, I’m afraid,’ Paolo said. Then, as if aware that his words might cause offence, he added in a conciliatory tone: ‘Still, it should be over quickly. The boy won’t suffer.’ Longo ignored him.

‘Are you ready for your lesson, cur?’ Carlo spoke sharply in Italian.

‘Go to hell, you son of a Turkish whore,’ William spat back in English.

‘Very well, then.’ Carlo bowed and assumed his fighting stance, his body sideways, his right foot forward and pointed at William, and his sword held lightly, following the point of his foot. William dropped to a low crouch, his entire body facing Carlo, his sword held out sideways before him. The two combatants stood still, gauging one another.

Paolo chuckled. ‘The boy looks something like a lobster, does he not?’ he said. Longo watched on in silence, and Paolo added: ‘I mean no offence, of course. I quite like lobsters. Delicious creatures.’

Suddenly, Carlo sprang forward, bounding towards William in a few short steps and lunging at the boy’s chest. William anticipated the attack, and he spun out of the way long before Carlo reached
him, slashing in vain at Carlo’s heels and then skipping to safety. Carlo continued to press the attack, lunging repeatedly with wicked thrusts. Each time, William spun clear, moving in a large circle around the square. Their fighting styles could not have been more different: Carlo always attacking on a line, moving back and forward only, while William moved constantly sideways, spinning and ducking. William was quicker than Carlo, but he was having a difficult time attacking against the Italian’s much longer reach.

Beside Longo, Paolo sensed that the fight would not go as easily as anticipated. ‘The boy is a slippery devil,’ he remarked. ‘No doubt learned it picking pockets.’

Another attack by Carlo, and this time William only narrowly avoided the blow, the sword ripping through the fabric of his shirt. Encouraged, Carlo pressed his attack, trying to close with William. William was on his heels now, no longer circling. He backed away, twisting from side to side and barely avoiding a handful of thrusts. His shirt showed several new tears, and now blood was trickling down his side. Still, William danced backwards, and Carlo pressed on, lunging again and again, his sword passing within inches of William’s twisting body.

A final lunge, and this time William was a step slow. He twisted into the blow, and the sword skewered his left side, just beneath the ribs. William stumbled, but before Carlo could withdraw his sword for another blow, William rose and drove his sword up through Carlo’s throat and out the back of his head. Carlo fell instantly, a pool of blood spreading out around his dead body. William staggered backwards, Carlo’s sword still lodged in his side. He looked down at the sword for a moment, then collapsed to his knees.

‘William!’ Longo rushed to the boy’s side. To his surprise, the wound did not look to be a mortal one. It bled little, and the sword seemed to have passed through cleanly, damaging neither the lungs nor the intestines. ‘You were lucky, boy,’ Longo told him. ‘But this sword will have to come out now. Brace yourself.’

‘It wasn’t luck, My Lord,’ William replied, gasping as Longo
withdrew the sword. ‘I couldn’t get close enough unless I took a blow. The pig-faced bastard had damned long arms.’

Longo laid William down, and then poured a flask of brandy into the wound. He tore two lengths of cloth from William’s new shirt, wadded the first into a ball, and pressed it against the wound. ‘Hold that,’ he ordered. Longo pressed the other strip against the wound in William’s back. He then took a long strip of linen that he had brought with him and wrapped it tightly around William’s mid-section several times, covering the wound.

‘That should hold you for now, but we had best get you inside,’ Longo said. ‘The cold won’t do you any good, and neither will the Grimaldi men. The duel was honourably fought, but they’ll be in a foul mood when they arrive. Paolo,’ he called to the heavy-set young man, who was kneeling in shock over his brother’s body. ‘I trust this puts a satisfactory end to this disagreement? There will be no acts of vengeance?’ Paolo gazed at him dumbly. ‘Very well then,’ Longo continued, ‘I suggest you send for some of your men as soon as you can. The dogs will be at the body soon enough if you wait.’

They left the stupefied Paolo still kneeling beside Carlo. Longo helped William into the saddle, then mounted behind him. They rode back to the Palazzo dei Giustiniani, the bells of San Salvatore ringing out behind them to welcome the new day.

The next morning it was clear from the sickening smell of the bandages that William’s wound was festering, and later that day the boy contracted a raging fever that left him incoherent, talking to those around him as if he were at home in England with his mother. A doctor was summoned, and he bled William to reduce his bad humours and relieve the fever. Still, the boy continued to burn, and none of the doctor’s efforts succeeded in relieving the delirium. Two days passed with no sign of improvement, after which the doctor offered only the direst of forecasts: even if he survived, the doctor assured them, the boy would be an idiot, all his wits burned away by the fever.

Longo could not bear to watch William wasting away. Leaving Tristo with orders to alert him of any change in the boy’s condition, he returned to his villa and busied himself with the tending of his vines. The very night of his return there was a frost, and Longo and his serfs spent a busy night lighting pots filled with pitch all along the rows of vines, fighting to keep the killing chill from the young leaves. The next morning, as Longo walked his vineyards to inspect the damage, he was surprised to see Tristo on horseback, galloping down from the villa to meet him.

As Tristo came closer, Longo could see that the huge man was struggling to stay upright in the saddle, and that he favoured his right arm, keeping it pinned to his side. What in God’s name had happened to him?

‘My Lord,’ Tristo said with a wince as he reined in his horse and slid from the saddle. ‘I bring news from town.’ Tristo’s right arm was in a sling, and blood showed through a heavy bandage wrapped around his head.

‘What has happened?’ Longo asked.

‘There was a fight with some of the Grimaldi men. I only happened across it at the last, and I set about trying to separate the men. I had my arm broken by the mace of one of our own men – the cursed idiot – and got a nasty gash on my head for my troubles. Still, the rest had it much worse. Gucio and Piero are killed. Four others are laid up with various injuries. One Grimaldi man is dead, and the rest are pretty badly off.’

The news was not surprising – duels started more feuds than they ended – but it was not welcome either. The Grimaldi were a powerful family, and Longo did not fancy having them as an enemy. Much less did he fancy watching his back each time he rode through the streets of Genoa, or sending his servants to market with armed escort. He would have to act fast. Now that men on both sides had lost friends, the matter needed only a small push – the death of another noble from one of the two families – to evolve into a blood feud.

‘Who started the fight?’ Longo asked.

‘Our men had been to the dock, and most likely to the tavern as well. On returning, they met six Grimaldi men in the street. Probably they were waiting for our men. Insults were exchanged, a Grimaldi man drew, and that was that. From what our men tell me, the Grimaldi men seem bent on revenge for what William did to Carlo. They seem to think the boy is some kind of assassin.’

‘And what of William?’ Longo asked.

‘The same. Only he stopped talking last night. Hasn’t said a word since. Loretta, the midwife, says that is a good sign. She says the fever will break now.’

‘And what does the doctor say?’

‘The doctor says that this is the beginning of the end. The no-good bastard seems to think that William is as good as dead.’

‘Then we shall have to hope that the midwife is in the right,’ Longo said. ‘You will stay here at the villa until you are healed. Have Maria look after you. I will return to Genoa to see to William and take care of this Grimaldi mess.’

Shortly after Longo’s arrival, William’s fever finally broke, and the boy woke from his long delirium with his senses intact. Longo watched him consume enough pasta to feed ten men, and then left for the Grimaldi
palazzo
to make his peace.