This Rough Magic (31 page)

When he had finished his breakfast and gone back to work, Maria took her largest basket and Alessia, and walked. There was no point in heading for the market, not when she was looking for living things instead of foodstuffs. But this was not such a big place that she couldn't reach a peasant cottage outside town.

After an hour's walk, Maria was less convinced she'd find what she was after. By the deserted status of the peasant houses,
they
certainly believed there was trouble coming. She was now away from the coast, and she could see the scallops of azure bay, and Kérkira, white in the morning sunshine. The air was already thick and warm and full of the scent of the fine-leaved shrubs by the roadside. Bees buzzed lazily while collecting their bounty from the flowers. Except for the empty cottages, stripped of everything moveable, it would have been hard to believe there was anything that could go wrong in this Eden.

Eventually she found a man and his wife struggling to remove an iron bedstead from a cottage. There were a couple of hens in the yard.

"Good day."

"Day to you too, kyria."

Maria was startled.
Kyria?
Lady? She'd dressed in an old dress, a relic of her days as a canaler. Then she realized that she spoke Venetian-accented Frankish, not Greek. The Venetians had been here for more than a hundred years and all the islanders she'd met could certainly understand the language. But Maria had rapidly gathered that there was a strong divide between even the lowliest Venetians and the local people. Among the women of the garrison this seemed to be even more of an issue. Greeks were servants! And one had to keep them in their place. You didn't speak to them. You gave them orders. Besides . . . she wore shoes. That set one apart from peasant women.

Maria set the basket and Alessia down, and took a hand with the bedstead. It was obviously the poor cottage's pride and joy, and the most treasured piece of furniture. A bed and the bedclothes were the one thing that the rent-collectors could not seize for debt, so they were usually the finest piece of furniture in the peasant houses, she'd been told.

The man and his wife nearly dropped it when Maria came to help. Their jaws certainly dropped.

The doorway had two broad buttresses outside. Inside, the door to the room that they were trying to take the bedstead out of was at such an angle that the bedstead just couldn't do the corner without hitting the strut. After a few moments of struggle Maria asked: "How did it get in?"

The man shrugged. "I do not know, lady. My grandfather put it in before I was born. There was only one room then."

Maria's patience was exhausted. Besides, she'd walked a long way carrying a baby on a hot morning. She took charge. There were some advantages to being a lordly foreigner. The peasant wouldn't have taken such instructions from his wife. "Put the end down. It'll have to stand on end to get it out."

At an angle, stood on end and scraping the white-washed clay, the bedstead came through.

The peasants grinned. "Lady, you are clever. And strong too," said the man admiringly. "Where do you come from?"

"Venice."

The peasant shook his head. "Can't be. Eh, Eleni? The women who come to the garrison and villas, they all are weak."

The wife nodded. "Anastasia is in service at Villa Foiri. She says the woman cannot even pick up a dish for herself."

Maria laughed. "They aren't weak, just lazy. Too lazy to do for themselves what they can pay someone else to do!"

This provoked laughter from both. "Why, lady, they say
we
are the lazy ones!"

Alessia stirred, and Maria went to her. The peasant wife looked longingly and adoringly at the baby. "She is so beautiful, lady."

Maria wondered why people always said babies were beautiful. She loved Alessia more than anything, but she wouldn't have called her baby "beautiful." Plump, yes. Soft and tiny, yes. Adorable, yes. "She is very lovely when she's asleep."

The peasant was plainly keeping out of this women's talk. "Eleni, why don't you bring us some of that young white wine and some food. It has been hot work, but now, thanks to the lady, the worst job is over."

Eleni nodded. "Sit, lady." She motioned to the bedstead. Her husband had already taken up the important task of supporting a tree, by sitting against it in the shade.

"I'll give you a hand," Maria offered. "I was brought up to know my way about a kitchen, never mind what the others do."

They went into the cool, dim cottage. The kitchen was around the back, actually a separate little room—the only light coming either from the hole in the roof or the door. The only "furnishing" was a hearth a few inches high, and a few small soot-blackened shelves. By comparison, Maria realized her little home was a palace.

The young peasant woman had plainly decided that such a person could be trusted with the innermost secrets of the heart. Questions about pregnancy and birthing followed as she took bread, olives and cheese, and a clay jug of wine from places in her kitchen and loaded these onto a board.

"I think I am pregnant," she confided in a whisper. "I have not . . . Yani and I have been married for three years and I have had no children. But this year I have been to the mountains. To the holy place for the dancing." She giggled. "It was very cold without my clothes on. But I will be blessed this year." She touched Alessia with a gentle hand.

She seemed to assume Maria knew what she was talking about.

They went outside, and woke her husband. The wine was cool and crisp, the bread crusty. The olives, wrinkled, tiny and black, were flavored with some rosemary. They ate in silence. Peasant table manners were simple: Talk and food did not go together. Maria smiled. Back in the days she'd been trying to learn to be more ladylike to please Caesare, one of the hardest things she'd had to try to master was the idea of eating and talking at the same time. It gave you indigestion. It was pleasant to slip back into the business of taking food seriously and talking later.

But when the eating was done, then it was time for talk and for business.

Maria found herself learning a great deal about the fleet that had been spotted at the bay of Vlores. She also found herself walking back to Corfu town leading a kid that did not wish to be led, and with a dozen fresh eggs, a crock of olives and some cheese. And with two disgruntled-looking brown chickens in her basket, their feet tied with twine and attached to the wicker.

On the slopes of Mount Pantocrator, two bored mercenary cavalrymen were preparing a late dinner of a skinny fowl that some peasant was going to be very upset about in the morning. Spatchcocked and grilling over the flames, it had more of their attention than the sea-watch their not very impressed
capi
had ordered them to keep. They had every intent of finishing their chicken and some young wine, and sleeping beside the embers of the olive-wood fire. Gurnošec was a Slovene, and his companion from Lombardy. Their loyalty to the Venetian Republic was purely financial.

Still, when the one got up from the fire and wandered into the dark a bit to relieve himself of some of that young wine . . . he did glance at the moonlit sea. He nearly wet his boots.

"Chicken looks about done, Gurni," said his companion, from the fireside.

"Forget the sodding chicken! We'd better get to our horses." His tone of voice told his Lombard companion that this was no joke. The man stood up and came away from the fire.

"What is it?"

The Slovene pointed at the sea. "This wasn't the stupidest idea that Commander Leopoldo ever had after all."

The chicken, untended, burned. The cavalrymen riding through the dark olives had other things on their minds. Was a real war worth what they were being paid? And would it be possible to go somewhere healthier? Both of them now saw, with crystal clarity, the folly of taking service which involved being posted on an island.

The bells were ringing in Kérkira three hours later. The sound carried a long way. Up in the hills, other church bells took up the chime. The sound carried across the water.

Count Ladislas ground his teeth. "Well, so much for surprise," he said grimly.

His second in command patted his horse's flank. "They'll be expecting attack from the sea. If we can cross the causeway-bridge we'll still be in. We'll take them."

Count Ladislas said nothing. But that in itself was a condemnation.

They landed at a fishing harbor on the western coast—nothing more than a beach with a few boats pulled up. The island hills loomed dark beyond. The moon was down, and ripping a local or two out of their beds ought to have been easy. But Count Ladislas soon realized that they'd been watched. The doors were still swinging in some of the little whitewashed houses as they rode past. Finding a guide was not going to be that easy, after all.

However, there was a track leading inland. And it was a distance of not more than two or three leagues to the Venetian fortress on the other side of the island. The Magyar cavalry rode off on the heavy horses, up through the olive groves, vineyards and fields. It was very dark, and the track—for it could hardly be called a road—was quite indistinct.

Two or three leagues can be a very long way in the dark. Especially when She who watched over the island did not love invaders.

The hills and Mediterranean scrub on them were a good enough grazing place for goats. They'd found the goats, but not the goatherd. Just a dead-end valley. In the darkness, the scrub oak and myrtle bushes were sweet-scented. Pleasant for a ramble, the place was hell for an officer in a hurry. They found two peasant farms and huts, but no peasants. Dawn eventually found them on a hilltop a good league from the eastern shore, and a league too far to the north.

By the smoke puffs, the Croats had already entered the town of Kérkira and were now attempting to assault the fortified Citadel. The Citadel was most definitely closed up and was most definitely returning fire on the Croats. The Venetian fortress, as Ladislas could now see, was going to be no pushover. It was on an islet just to seaward of the town. The wooden causeway he and his men had been intended to take by speed was reduced to a few smoking piles on the far shore.

So much for rushing it. The burning houses in the town, outside the walls, showed the Croats had been busy. It was unlikely they'd done much to the fortified Citadel though. All they'd achieved was to get shot at.

Count Ladislas sighed. King Emeric was not going to be pleased. He never was when his plans went awry, which they frequently did because he was inclined to excessively complex ones. The failure of his plans was always blamed on the errors of his officers when they went wrong, and attributed to his genius when they went right—despite the fact that success, as often as not, meant that some officer had disobeyed.

Still, they'd better get down there.

Taki leaned back against the big granite boulder and looked at the Hungarian cavalrymen. Saint Spirodon! Those horses were big! He and old Georgio had had quite a night up here with the devils. Of course they hadn't really been chasing after them or even Georgio's goats—as they discovered when they abandoned the goats. It had just seemed as if they were being followed.

They'd choose a place no sane man would go—if he wasn't chasing you—and the horsemen would come around the bend. They'd covered a good three leagues in the last few hours and these crazy soldiers must have ridden a lot more.

He watched in relief as the three hundred horsemen set off for the Viros road. Kérkira was burning down there. He looked gloomily at the scene, at the backs of the Hungarians, then at the black smoke from what had been a sweet taverna once. He wasn't surprised to see other Corfiote heads popping up from the underbrush of another hillside. They wouldn't be able to stay up here forever, but until the worst excesses were over, a lot of the peasantry would stay in the hills. It was still not summer, still cold at night, but at least it wasn't winter. And maybe She would provide. You never knew.

There really was nothing worth destroying out here. The town of Kérkira outside the walls of the Venetian fortress was ruined or burning. Out of range of the arquebusiers on the walls, the Croats and Hungarians milled about ineffectually. By the screams, some of them had managed to find a woman. Or maybe not; a man with his privates blown off screamed like a woman, sometimes. Riderless horses roamed, wild-eyed. The air was full of gunpowder, smoke and shouts. Occasional cannon fire from the walls increased the carnage, and the invaders, without cannon, were unable to even return fire.

Count Ladislas knew by then that it was a complete fiasco. The fort and its cannon could defend the harbor very effectively. The buildings the Croats had been firing indiscriminately belonged not to the Venetians, but to the locals. They provided at least some rudimentary cover from the cannon fire . . . So the Croats were burning them. Wonderful.

True, the fortress was in reality designed to defend from attack by sea. The larger cannon would be there. But, no doubt, they could be moved. Ladislas couldn't really see how the situation could get any worse.

And then, looking back down the slope he realized it could—at least on a personal scale. That was one of the king's messengers. And by the way he was riding, His Majesty wanted someone in a hurry. With a terrible, sinking feeling in his gut, Count Ladislas realized that Emeric's messenger was looking for him.

Emeric of Hungary believed in personal comfort. He'd come close to the fighting, but not close enough to risk actual combat. Still, he'd been close enough on his hillside, outside his hastily erected palatial tent, to have seen Count Ladislas and his precious Magyar cavalry arrive too late. He watched them discharge their wheel-lock pistols ineffectually at the fortress wall across the empty kill-zone.

The narrow streets of Kérkira were no place for a cavalry charge. Emeric, instead of watching the victory he'd expected, had seen his plan totally unravel.