Maria was working on the looms on the upper tier, keeping a weather eye on the carpenters working on the next level down. The gates opened. Maria blinked at the sunlight on armor, then rubbed her eyes unbelievingly.
She got up slowly and deliberately, took Alessia from her crib in the shade, and walked down the stairs—being very careful not to stumble. Her knees felt a little weak.
Benito was grinning at Umberto, trying not to show his shock. The master-caulker had never been a big man. Now he looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away. He was gaunt and pale, and he looked at least twenty years older. "I hear you got in the way of a bullet, Umberto."
"The master is a hero!" said one of the other scuolo, affronted by this familiarity. "He saved the Citadel!"
Umberto's eyes narrowed, focusing on Benito. "Signor Valdosta?"
Benito nodded. "Just Benito Valdosta. Or as your wife would have it, just trouble."
"You got out? Maria told me you had been successful in getting out, that someone had signaled from the main island. Raftopo," he pointed to Benito, "this is the young man who bought your coracle, remember?"
The fellow nodded. "Si. I remember. Umberto wouldn't say what you wanted it for."
"We went over the wall to the island," said Benito. "How's Maria, Umberto?"
The former coracle-owner shook his head. A stolid oxlike thinker, he plainly ground everything to its finest. "If you got out, how come you're here?"
Manfred patted Benito on the shoulder. "Because he came back, of course. After he went all the way to Venice."
"In my coracle? Ha." The former owner looked as if people had all too often tried to put one over him.
"Hell, no—that sank about a mile away," said Benito. "Fishing boat to Italy. Small trader up the west coast and then a damned horse over the Apennines to Ferrara. Barge to Venice."
The scuolo wrestled with the implications of this. "You mean . . ."
"Back again, I see," said Maria. "You know, Benito, you're the original bad penny." But she was smiling broadly as she said it, and her eyes seemed a little moist.
He was looking like . . . Benito. At first she thought he had shrunk. The she realized it was just outsize clothes. Good clothes but enormous. The cotte hung like a dress on him, which was maybe just as well. The breeches he wore were muddy and salt-stained. His feet were bare and filthy. And his face . . .
She looked at it, remembering. It had lost a little of the youthfulness, and he was as pale as a nocturnal Case Vecchie gentleman. He was smiling at her, very oddly. "How's Alessia?" he asked. "Her godmother wanted me to ask."
She put a hand on his forehead. It was clammy but hot. "You can find out when you get out of the hospital, you idiot! He's feverish, Prince. Take him there before he falls over on us."
Benito obliged her by doing just that.
Manfred walked over to the commander's offices after they'd deposited Benito in the care of the monks. There were times for subtlety and quiet contact. This wasn't one of them.
"Commander Leopoldo's over at the south wall, sir. There's a bit of a situation there. We had explosions there early this morning."
Manfred laughed. Benito! "I'll go and see him there."
He went by horse, with Von Gherens, having had a sudden thought. He dispatched Falkenberg to go and keep a watch over Benito. The boy could easily be the target of whoever the spies in the Citadel were. The morale boost to the Citadel of having news from Venice was huge. That was why Manfred had told the men at the Little Arsenal what Benito had done. It would run like wildfire around the fortress. It would get to whoever was spying, too. Emeric wouldn't enjoy hearing that news.
"We think he may be some sort of trap," said Leopoldo, pointing to the man at the foot of the tower. "He's alive. We've seen him move. So why is he tied up? Who is he? And there are those barrels of what is probably gunpowder over there."
Manfred looked at the bound, trouserless man, and at the shingle strip with four haphazardly lying barrels on the beach. "Nope," he said with a grin and in a good carrying voice. "That's Benito's work. You can go out and collect the prisoner. I'll go out and fetch him if you like."
"That's a lot of black powder. If there is shrapnel in it and it goes off, Prince, you'll be mincemeat."
"I told you, Commander. My agent, Benito Valdosta, caught that saboteur last night, when my man was coming in from the Venetian forces. You should come up to the hospital and hear all the details."
"Venetian forces?"
"Hadn't I told you yet? The scouts for the Venetian relief force have arrived."
If the black powder in the barrels on the shingle had suddenly gone off, it could scarcely have caused a bigger explosion.
Hidden in some Aleppo pines in a rocky little defile, Erik surveyed the Citadel gloomily. It was still defiant, bathed in the last of the evening light, but he didn't see what he hoped to see. On the first day after the young tearaway left, he actually expected to see the banner of the Knights in that corner tower. When it wasn't hoisted, he'd given orders to move from all the localities Benito knew. Torture got information out of anyone. So did black magic. And Emeric used both.
The next day he still hoped. Tonight was merely a duty. The youngster was either a prisoner or dead, and most likely the latter. Erik thought about the sword Benito had left in his keeping, and sighed. He'd love to own it, but he'd part with it in a heartbeat if it could have spared the boy. He was so caught up in these morbid thoughts that he didn't realize that, flying above the north tower of the inner wall, was the famous treble cross of the Knights of the Holy Trinity.
"It'll be the most welcome saltcellar a bridal couple ever got," he said to himself, laughing in relief. "He must be down to two of his nine lives."
The slave breakout that night brought Erik sixty-two fanatical new recruits. But Erik's first priority was to feed the poor devils up a bit.
The Magyar officer shook his head. "They seem to have forgotten the meaning of trust. They won't even parley, Sire, let alone agree to terms. Early days—back in June—all they did when they saw our men was make sure the gates were shut and watch us. But now . . . Feeling has hardened, Sire. They're shooting on sight. Both Paleokastritsa and Kassiopi are still holding out. I've put men on watch, and they're in a sort of siege, but without cannon and a lot more men I don't see reducing either."
Emeric considered. "We'll play a waiting game, then. I don't want to take men off the siege here."
"Getting the heavy cannon to either of those two towns would be very difficult anyway, Sire. There is no road, just a donkey-track. It could be done, but it would take a lot of men and a lot of effort. Easier to starve them out. When the Citadel falls, they'll be forced to surrender."
Emeric nodded. "I see the peasants are coming back onto the land."
"The men and the older women are, Sire. You don't see a child except running away. Basically, hunger forced them out, but the lack of rain is worrying them."
Emeric snorted wryly. "I can only have it one way. The rain must stay away from the Venetians, too. So: What did you find out about the murder of those two Libri d'Oro collaborators?"
The Magyar officer scowled. "The peasants did it, Sire. But they swear it was some klepthes—bandits from the hills in the north. We really do have a problem with that. Our troops can't move singly. I have to send them everywhere in squads. I've tried torture. I've tried beatings. I've executed a few in front of their families. No one talks. So I tried a different tactic in Gastouri, with that second murder. We're twenty miles away from where I'd tried the last time. This time I pretended it hadn't happened. I told my men to go easy. To buy the locals drinks. To convince them we were simply taking over from Venice and that they'd find us far better masters. The peasants won't drink with us unless you hold a knife to their throats. I finally asked one old bastard why. He said we eat babies and feed our dogs their bones. I told him this was rubbish, but he insisted he'd been shown the gnawed bones."
"I don't want to go back there, Umberto," Maria said, knowing she couldn't tell him the real reason—that she was certain Sophia Tomaselli had put some kind of ill-wishing on the house and on him. For that matter, she wouldn't put it past the woman to try to get someone to poison them at this point. Living there just made her feel too exposed.
But none of those things would have made any sense to Umberto. "I know, it's getting colder down here. We'd benefit from living in a proper house again, but I'm scared. I won't take you there. I won't take Alessia there."
Umberto smiled. "Well. It makes a suggestion I have to make easier, Maria. I have here a letter from Master Grisini. He's not well. The honest truth is he's concerned for his wife's future if he should die. The captain-general would then reallocate his home. His wife should go back to Venice—in the normal course of events. Of course that can't happen right now because of the siege. Grisini is deeply worried that the captain-general will take a rather spiteful and petty vengeance by moving the old lady out. He could do it, too. However, the house is a very large one, and what Grisini proposes is that we—you and me and Alessia—move into the lower section. It's still bigger than our old house. The move doesn't have to be approved by anyone except Commander Leopoldo, and he's a reasonable man. If Master Grisini dies, we'll be 'sitting tenants,' the captain-general won't be able to evict us, and we can give house-room to old Mrs. Grisini until the siege is lifted and she goes back to Venice. The house is a lovely one, and Grisini is afraid if the scuolo lose tenancy of it we'll never get anything nearly as good again. He suggests we move four of the Illyrians into our old house, to stop fights with the Corfiotes down here.
Maria shrugged. "Umberto, old Mrs. Grisini isn't really in this world anyway. But if it means I don't have to take you and Alessia back to that house, fine."
"Your agent? You dared to do this without my permission?"
Eberhard cleared his throat. "Captain-General Tomaselli, while this place is a Venetian possession—Prince Manfred is not a Venetian subject. To be a bit blunt, he doesn't need permission to get his men to do anything. And he did, in fact, obtain carte blanche from the governor to get a message out. Signor Valdosta here was delivering a message to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from the prince. That was his primary task, which he achieved. It was done on the prince's orders and with the prince's money. The fact that young Benito is a good citizen of your Republic and did his civic duty by reporting the matter to the relevant authorities there also, and returned with ships and men, was a bonus for Venice."
He paused. "I know you see this as an attack on the Venetian Republic. But please understand: To us it is a danger to the man who is second in line for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. By comparison, the Emperor holds Corfu or even the Venetian Republic—though staunch friends—to be of lesser value. The reason that huge imperial efforts are going into relieving this siege is the prince. Our secrecy has nothing to do with a lack of faith in you personally, it was just that this matter was purely about Prince Manfred."
It spoke volumes for the influence that the older statesman had been able to exert over the captain-general that Tomaselli did calm down. "I hadn't thought of it like that. But nonetheless I should have been consulted! The security of this fortress is my responsibility. And any route this man followed could be followed by hundreds of enemy troops. The way must be blocked!"
Benito laughed. That made him cough. When the paroxysm finished he said, "I swam the better part of a mile in two sections, I climbed a sixty-foot cliff on the seaward side of the Citadel in the dark. Next thing the Magyar will be doing it on horseback and in full armor."
Eberhard patted Benito soothingly. "He's not well, Captain-General. I'm sure he'll show your men the spot when he's up. But it would not be easy for anyone else."
"I'll take you down it personally, Captain-General Tomaselli. I wouldn't dream of letting someone else assess the security." Benito went off into coughing again.
"He's fevered. I think we must leave him to rest. Come, Captain-General." Eberhard showed Tomaselli out and on the way shook his fist at Benito, behind the captain-general's back.
Manfred and Benito restrained themselves from sending Benito off into a coughing fit again, until the captain-general had mounted his horse and was clopping away.
"It is a good thing I insisted on Von Gherens staying outside," said Manfred, his shoulders still shaking.
Benito looked at Manfred. "It's an equally good thing I didn't tell him that Petro Dorma has decided to relieve the pompous ass of his post and promote Commander Leopoldo in his place."
"What! That would solve a hell of a lot of problems."
Benito raised his eyebrows. "Really? Do you think he'd believe me? It's not as if I can prove it. Captain Di Negri has a set of orders signed by the Doge with the seal of the Republic on them . . . but I didn't see swimming in with them."
"I hadn't thought of that."