This Rough Magic (73 page)

Maria tried very earnestly to pray. Not for herself, so much, but for Alessia. Children were very vulnerable to disease. She wasn't sure, but she thought they might be especially vulnerable to black magic also.

When they'd finished, one of the priests went and fetched a pair of fine tongs—simple black iron things, but surprisingly delicate. They blessed the tongs and asked for protection on them, and then they began examining the bunch of plants and other fragments carefully. After a few minutes Eneko came over to where Maria still knelt.

"Maria." He spoke gently, and in a way she'd not expected from such a man. With understanding. "I know this is very frightening, but I have some good news for you. That revolting thing is as magical as a brick. It was someone playing a very unpleasant and particularly nasty trick. It's a complete fraud."

One of the other priests had come up too. "A fraud by a person who knew more than is good for them about black magic and its symbols, but a fraud nonetheless. The words on the strip that bind the bunch together are indeed some demon names. But two of them are misspelled and there are no words of summoning. And one of those is the demon associated with senile dementia and the others are of little relevance, either."

"But the smell . . ."

The other monks had come up by this time. "I think you put it in the right place," said one of them. "It has been dipped in night soil. Unpleasant and smelly, certainly, but quite unmagical. Of that we are certain."

"A pity," said the other. "I really thought, Diego, that at last we had a lead on these devil-worshipers."

The short dark saturnine one shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Eneko patted Maria, reassuringly. "Although you're disappointed, I don't think Maria is."

Maria shuddered. "No. Not at all. But . . . are you sure it is harmless?"

"Absolutely certain. There is not even a trace of magic about this thing."

"The woman I interrupted didn't think so. She fought me like a mad thing. She obviously believed in it."

Eneko walked back to the pot. "You say this was her glove? A wealthy enemy, this one of yours."

Maria had come over to it, too. She looked at the glove. It was made of the finest blemish-free kid with small pearl studs. Yes. Someone wealthy beyond Maria's dreams of avarice. Someone who could afford to spend on a pair of gloves the kind of money that Maria didn't spend on clothes in a year.

She shook her head. "But who? I don't really have any enemies—not that hate me that much, surely? And I know hardly any wealthy people. Here on Corfu, at least."

"Hmm. Do you want this pot back right away? We might try divining on it if we fail in this project we're currently busy with," said Eneko. "It may not lead us any closer to the devil-worshipers we seek, but it may be a good idea to root out whatever fraud is preying on people and letting their worst natures lead them into this."

Maria looked at the pot and shuddered again. "I certainly don't want it back. Ever."

Emeric smiled rapaciously, looking at the assembled cavalry. When the details of the planned sorties had reached him, he'd been unable to believe the naiveté of them. But Fianelli assured him that the information was absolutely rock solid. It came from the best of sources. Emeric had told Count Dragorvich, his siegemaster. The Count had simply stared at him and then begun laughing.

"Why not just give us the keys to the gate, Your Majesty? We're finishing the south first, so they'll face the south. Well, Sire, you wanted to use the heavy cavalry. If this is really their battle plan, here is the opportunity."

Emeric nodded. "Light skirmishers and a testudo-covered ram on foot, as the sacrificial troops. Not too many. Use some of those Slovenes. And when the gates are full of arquebusiers—a two-prong charge. And tell the gunners not to aim for the gate any more. We want it to be able to open nicely and easily."

The moles had been basically complete since the previous day. Emeric made no effort to push troops across them yet, but kept the men working on them, widening and improving them; even clearing the sheltering mole walls, making the moles into causeways, under heavy Venetian fire. Then, in the morning, the first skirmishers began pushing across, using leather shields to protect them as best as possible. With them came the testudo and ram on its clumsy wooden wheels.

Watching from the southern postern, Falkenberg scowled. "Something's wrong, Prince. Even the captain-general can't believe that in an age of black powder and cannon, someone is going to sit and pound the gate down with a ram. They're waiting for a sortie. That's why there are so few of them. They are supposed to be able to get out of the way of the heavy cavalry, when it comes."

"We just happen to be wandering around with a hundred knights in full armor near the gate. We know nothing about this," said Manfred.

"And neither does that ass. Hark! There they go."

The trumpet sounded the sortie.

"Give it three hundred heart-beats before the first volley, and ten before the charge," said Falkenberg professionally.

He might have been off by two heartbeats when a horn blew on the Spianada.

"Here come the Magyars!"

Even from half a mile across the water they could hear the thunder.

"All right," said Manfred. "Out lances,
Ritters
!"

Commander Leopoldo, on foot among his arquebusiers, watched as it began going wrong. They'd burst out of the gate, the press of men behind him. The captain-general, perched on a showy gray, rapier in hand, attempted to organize them. The few Slovenes had fled, abandoning the testudo and diving into the water. "Reloa—"

The yells and thunder of heavy cavalry, massed and waiting between Emeric's earth cannon-ramparts, drowned the rest. Coming in a thick mass, ten abreast, Hungary's finest streamed onto the mole causeways.

Leopoldo gritted his teeth . . . waiting.

Emeric's cannon were not firing—too much chance of hitting his own troops, or possibly preventing the sortie. So, until that moment had Leopoldo's gunners been holding their fire also. Now all the Citadel's guns that it was possible to bring to bear on the causeways fired in unison. Leopoldo had had help from the blue-scarred Knot bombardier in ranging, and even in the choice of ball in those cannon.

The chainshot—intended to bring down masts, sails and rigging—hit the two Hungarian charges like sudden brick walls. One minute the Hungarians had been unstoppable.

The next . . . stopped. But the Knights had been right about their foe, Leopoldo saw. Not even that would stop them, and now the cannon would have to reload.

The pikemen on the walls poured the pitch and even managed to fling a few barrels to burst and shatter on the shingle just short of the north and south bastions.

"What are they doing!?" screamed the captain-general furiously. He waved his sword wildly at them. "Wait until they get to you, you idiots!"

But they were obviously too far off to hear that. Panicking, too. Some had even thrown a few faggots into the sticky mess. And in their panic, obviously everything else on hand—including caltrops and a number of burning brands. Leopoldo knew a moment's heart-stop when the naphtha and faggots on the south didn't catch. Pitch always was the devil to light. Then some brave soul tossed a grenade into it.

Between two fires, but still with half his men inside the gate, the captain-general yelled, "Charge!" His horse reared, and he waved his sword—a heroic figure.

And then he fell off his horse.

It's one of those things that will happen, even to the finest horseman—if a trusted sergeant has undone the belly cinch. But Leopold had no time to watch. He had a battle to deal with. He began bellowing orders.

Which did
not
include "Charge!"

The Knights of the Holy Trinity charged instead, sortieing from the northern and southern posterns. Hitting the flanks of the Magyars, they trapped some between the wall, the fire and themselves. Others they flung back onto the causeway. The Magyars had lost most of their impetus, the sheer weight of their charge that made them so unstoppable, in the cannon barrage. And then they'd had to gallop onto the thin strip of pebbles in front of the walls, and then the burning beach.

Horses—even well-trained war-horses—do not like fire. And the arquebusiers on the other side of the flames were making a very orderly retreat. Fire a rank. Step back. Within the gates, the officers had pushed the tercio apart and sent the men up onto the walls above.

The Knights of the Holy Trinity had the full two hundred and fifty yards to build their impetus. And on the narrow strip of land, superior numbers were no advantage. The Knights didn't like challengers to their position as the foremost heavy cavalry in Europe, and they inflicted a sharp lesson.

And once the causeway was packed with men dying, men fleeing, horses leaping into the water . . . they retreated at a sharp trumpet call. The near-rout was just being turning into a rally and second assault, when the reloaded cannon fired a second time. This time the targets were packed as tightly as possible. The carnage was terrible. The second charge of the Knights of the Holy Trinity was not so fast or fierce . . . but the resistance of the foe was gone.

The pride of Hungary were streaming from the causeways, and now the rout was unstoppable, even with Emeric's savage discipline.

The hastily following Venetian sappers, running up with kegs of black powder, whirling slow-matches and a prayer, had a good while in which to work, before one of Emeric's generals had the sense to push foot soldiers and Croats forward. Emeric himself had been too preoccupied shrieking threats at his cavalrymen.

The southern mole was blown apart, and only a narrow ridge remained of the northern one.

And someone had been kind enough to drag the captain-general inside.

Emeric seethed with rage, once he realized he'd stumbled into a trap. I will crush them. I will crack them like lice. Every man, woman and child in that citadel will die. 

Despite his fury, a calm and calculating part of him was finally accepting the truth. The Citadel would not fall—not quickly enough, anyway—simply through military means. And while it might fall to treachery, treason was in the nature of things a slippery weapon.

I'll have to go back to Hungary and ask for help, damn her eyes.

"Ah . . . Your Majesty." Count Dragorvich, a clever man who always made sure that the king made all the crucial decisions—and took the credit for them, naturally—was without words this time. He just pointed.

The ricks of hay for the cavalry were on fire. Someone had obviously made the best of the distraction offered by the assault to attack their rear. Again.

"Get me the blond," Emeric hissed.
"Now."
 

"You're supposed to be an advisor to the Emperor Alexius VI of Constantinople. Why are you still here?" asked Emeric, looking at the blond man.

There was a pause. "I am here to see to my master's interests."

An interesting reply, thought Emeric. Which master? 

However, all he said was: "It is very much in your master's interests to see us win here, and win decisively and soon. So I have a task for you. There is one of these Venetians—or rather an Imperial—on the loose. He and his men are attacking our rear. Our supplies, our materiel, even our men."

King Emeric leaned forward in his throne. "I've checked on your background, Aldanto. I know who you are, my Milanese traitor and sell-sword. This is the right sort of task for you, I think. Find Erik Hakkonsen—or his woman. Find them and bring them in. Hakkonsen I will have dead, happily. If you only get the woman . . . see that she survives. If not quite as she was, but in a good enough state to be bait. In the meantime, I'm returning to Hungary to fetch more troops and enlist some very powerful support. When I come back, I want to see Hakkonsen's head."

The blond man paused and then nodded jerkily. "Hakkonsen. Yes."

"Good," said Emeric. Nastily: "That'll keep you and that yellow dog of yours busy."

Chernobog did understand long-standing hatreds, for such things were meat and drink to it—and it indulged in such things itself, from time to time. It also understood the elimination of threats. Hakkonsen was the one who had put that throbbing scar on his forehead. The puppet himself hated the Icelander, for that matter, insofar as the puppet was still able to feel anything.

As for Emeric, well, Emeric did not merely nurse his grudges, he nurtured and watered them with blood, something else that Chernobog understood. So the demon would cooperate. It did not do this for Emeric, or in fear of Emeric. It did this for itself.

Compared to hunting for this place's seats of power, hunting peasants around the maquis was as easy as breathing to the shaman. He sent the hawks up, spotted a peasant and his son, and hunted them down with Caesare and his Croat escort.

"You will find these hill-fighters," said the scary-looking blond in charge of the soldiers. "You will ask other peasants until you find them. And then you will give the leader this note. You will tell him I am a Greek with the Imperial fleet—but that I am from Corfu. I am shocked by the devastation, and wish to strike back at the Hungarians. Your family has worked for mine for many years. If he comes . . . Your son is free. Do you understand?"

The boy was perhaps four years old. The Greek peasant nodded. "Yes." He paused; quavered: "Do you promise you will do nothing to hurt him?"

The blond blinked. "Of course."

The yellow dog made no promises.

"It seems worth looking into," said Erik. "It would hit Emeric where it hurts. Money and weapons we certainly need. But can we trust this Xerxes?"

"My family have worked for them for many years, sir," said the peasant, nervously wringing his hands.

Erik's heart went out to the man. To be loyal enough to go looking for people the Hungarians would kill. Still, it could be a trap. "I'll meet him. Go back to him and tell him there is a small mountain just north of Giannades. There's a shepherd's hut on the ridge. I'll meet him there at moonset. Alone. Anyone else and he'll die. You'd better come back as a hostage, too."