Maria closed her eyes to pray, then opened them, looking at the scene below. Already the bulk of the Hungarian forces were pouring in through the breach in the outer wall. The inner wall, which enclosed the Castel
a mar
and the Castel
a terra
, was higher than the outer curtain wall—but it certainly wasn't thicker. And the wells in the upper part of Citadel were long dry. True, they'd all taken part in the filling of the huge cisterns up in the Castels . . . uphill all the way, carrying water ewers. But when that was gone, there would be no more.
According to Benito, the water available might last the ten thousand people inside the Citadel two weeks. The cisterns had been intended for the garrison only. On wet, verdant Corfu, the wells and the two springs in the inner citadel never ran dry.
Except now. There was an evil thing out there, as the high priestess had explained. A spirit of dryness, fire and death. A thing that caused green life to wither just by its existence.
Maria sighed. First her home. Then Umberto. And now this. They were being devoured slowly. She made her way through the crowded streets and to the hospital and the Hypatian chapel, where some women and the children who were too young to fling rocks had been sent when it was realized this was an assault that might actually succeed. Stella had taken Alessia and a number of other
scuolo
and Corfiote children so that the younger women could go to help on the walls.
She found Stella at the chapel, looking stunned and crying. "Alberto—he's missing! They tell me he was shot. He was with the rearguard. There was no one to bring him in. Dear God! Dear God!"
For once her children were silent. Big eyed. Scared, even the ones too young to fully understand.
Maria couldn't find words, so she simply hugged her, hard. The older woman clung to her. Maria swallowed. "Stella. You . . . you stood by me, when, when Umberto and I were new and friendless. You were there when there was that curse and others avoided me. You've stood by me. I'll help as much as I can."
Stella pulled away, despair warring with anger in her face. "God's Death, Maria, don't you understand? We're all going to die here. My man. My babies. All of us. We'll either die of thirst and starvation or the Hungarian monsters will get us."
Maria picked up Alessia. The little girl hung listlessly in her arms. "I'll do something. I have to."
She turned and walked out of the chapel. A horrible thought had just crossed her mind. If there had been no one to bring Alberto in . . . where was Benito? He was with the rearguard. Benito would always choose the hardest, the riskiest task. He would be in the front of the vanguard . . . and at the back of the rearguard. Maria went searching.
Eventually she found Erik and Manfred. The prince's armor was dented. His visor was now up and there was blood oozing from a small cut above his eye.
"Prince Manfred. I'm looking for Benito."
He looked a little annoyed that someone should trouble him at this stage. At the mention of Benito's name, though, the expression eased.
"Last I saw of him was when we were returning from that final sortie. He and a couple of others—a big fellow and another man—were lighting the charges to the houses on the road. Have you seen him, Erik?"
Erik frowned. "No. And he's supposed to report to me. Check with the gate guards. Wait. I'll come with you. That'll get answers."
Very shortly, Maria knew the worst.
Seven of the rearguard hadn't reached the gate. Alberto and Benito were both among them.
Benito. Gone.
What little remained of the bottom of her world crumbled and fell away, leaving her hollow and utterly, utterly alone.
She turned blindly from Erik, not hearing what he said, and walked away. Alessia whimpered and nuzzled weakly, but Maria had no milk to give her. Maria's eyes remained dry. There were no tears to cry now. The time for weeping was over.
She'd lost Umberto . . . He'd not been her soulmate, perhaps, but he'd been someone she'd gone from liking to loving. And now she'd lost the man she'd truly loved, too. Benito was gone. She hadn't even had a chance to say good-bye to him, much less tell him—well, much of anything. Except that he was a fool. Which he was. And that his wildness was going to get him killed.
Which it had.
And very soon she'd lose her baby, too. Alessia was dying, slowly, of hunger; the worst of all possible deaths. Even being spitted on a Hungarian spear was better than this, dying by inches.
And that was when she knew what she had to do.
It came to her, all of a piece; not as a blinding flash of revelation, but settling over her like a blanket. Certainty. And perhaps it was folly equal to Benito's, or insanity, and perhaps her soul would be damned, or perhaps it just wouldn't work at all . . . but there was only one person here who could and would do what she was about to. Therefore, she would do it. She had nothing to lose, now. Except Alessia, and if she did not do this thing, Alessia was lost anyway.
There was only one way forward. Squaring her chin, Maria walked determinedly through the frightened crowds, onward and upward to the Castel
a mar
—
—to see the high priestess. To tell her that she was ready to become the bride of the master of the black altar.
The guards recognized her; let her pass unquestioned. It all happened very quickly.
Renate was waiting for her, her hair loose, her white robe on.
"If you had not come—" The priestess looked exhausted, and seemed twenty years older than when Maria had first come to the island.
"Well," she said. "I did."
They took the passage down from the Castel to the hidden temple.
"
Merde!
They've come up the side!"
Struggling with the weight of Alberto—he might no longer be fat, but he was still large—Benito took a side street. Alberto was plainly in shock, but was doing his best to hobble, supported by the smaller man. The road was unfamiliar to Benito, but the sound of hooves galloping up the street was not. He hauled Alberto over a low wall and they hid as a troop of Croats rode past. Lying in the shadows, Benito suddenly realized that he had in fact seen the house across there before. It was dilapidated-looking, with a smashed door that was now boarded over.
The last time he'd been there, there'd been a guard on it, to keep away the curious from the house of the "black magician," Aldo Morando. He'd been there to look at the fraud's cellar. It might do as a place to hide. Alberto needed his leg tended, needed to rest. The gates of the inner curtain wall were bound to be closed by now. They were stuck on the outside, and Benito had a feeling getting in might be next to impossible, even for him.
"Come. We must hide better before the footmen start searching for loot."
Alberto, wincing and trying not to cry out, struggled up, leaning on Benito. "God. I can't. Leave me, Valdosta."
"Can't do that. That gabby wife of yours told me to look after you, big man. Come on. There's a place just over there."
It didn't take Benito long to pry away the boards sealing the doorway. Inside, Benito found the place much as he remembered it. Even with Morando in prison people had been too superstitious, after the initial curiosity, to come here. The trapdoor, as he remembered, was in the passage. He hoped it wasn't too damaged to put back.
Only when he looked in the passage . . . the broken door wasn't there. He had to get down on hands and knees to find it. The knight's axe had split the thin stone, but someone had put it back together again and smeared dirt very carefully in the crack.
Benito used the faithful Shetland knife to lever it up. Someone had nailed the split wood together again also.
Who? And why?
The whole thing smelled of trouble. But could it be worse than the Hungarians?
He helped Alberto to the stairs. "I can crawl," said Alberto through gritted teeth. "You close it."
Benito did so, as Alberto edged his way downwards. It was as dark as Stygia in here. There was also a bad smell. Nothing very strong, just the trace of corruption that came from a putrefying corpse or carcass not buried deeply enough.
Suddenly, someone struck a light on the far side of the garish cellar. And Benito knew at last the answer to the mystery that had been plaguing Maria.
Sophia Tomaselli looked a lot more like a storybook witch now. Her once magnificent hair was wild and tangled. She wasn't wearing any clothes. She'd painted herself with something . . . black now, anyway. Some of the patterns were smeared.
She had a wheel-lock pistol. She was also swaying drunk—which was presumably why they'd made it this far.
She blinked owlishly at them. "Two of you. What's wrong with him?"
Benito really hadn't had time to look. He'd been just ahead, running for the gate when Alberto had gone down with a scream. He knew the man had been hit in the lower leg. He was in pain and bleeding. "I don't know. I'll have a look." He spoke in as level a voice as he could manage.
Sophia's eyes narrowed. "You! You're Valdosta. The wonderful hero." She snarled that out in such a way as to make it abundantly plain that whatever he was in her opinion, it was neither wonderful nor heroic.
"I need to see to his leg," said Benito calmly.
He might as well not have spoken. "Come over here. Come here or I'll shoot you." Her voice was ugly with triumph. "My prayers to the Devil have been answered. I saw how she looked at you, that
scuolo
puta . . . Baby-sit! Ha."
She stepped over to the altar and took up a knife. "Now we're going to have the true sacrifice." The little giggle that followed had a half-insane flavor to it. "The one that Morando was too scared to do. But I'm not afraid! I promised if he let me destroy her I would give him the old sacrifice. Killing you will do both. First I'm going to cut . . ." She gestured obscenely with the knife in her hand, for the first time pointing the pistol at the roof and not them.
Benito threw the Shetland knife. By now, the once-stocky boy had the shoulders and chest of a very powerful man. The blade went right through her thin chest, stopping only when the hilt slammed into the flesh. Sophia was flung backwards onto Morando's mock-altar.
Benito already had his rapier out, and was running forward. But . . .
She wasn't going to vent her spite on anyone ever again. From the amount of blood, the Shetland knife had split her heart.
"Holy mother of God! Let's get out of here!" Alberto was already trying to crawl up the stairs again.
Benito looked at the dead woman. Death had eased the lines of hatred, fear and misery from her face. "Stay there, Alberto. She was crazy and now she's dead."
"She said she prayed to the Devil to destroy Maria. That she promised human sacrifice . . ."
"And look what it got the poor silly bitch. Don't worry, Alberto. The best priest I know examined this place and said it was all a fake. A complete fraud. She was crazy and she believed in it, but it's nothing for us to worry about. Your leg and the Hungarians out there are a lot more serious." Benito tugged at his knife, struggling to free it from the bone.
"But you did come here. Here of all places."
Cleaning the knife on the piece of black velvet that Morando had used for his pseudo altar cloth, Benito shrugged. "Maria says this is Corfu. Magic here happens. And so do coincidences."
He took up the lamp and the knife and started toward Alberto. And then stopped, his eyes caught by something to the side. "Well, I'll be . . . No wonder she could hide out here! Morando must have been prepared to do just that. There's more water and food stashed in here than there is in the whole Citadel. This was a false wall."
Benito walked over to Alberto and started gently cutting the fabric away from the bloody mess. A bit of bone protruded from the jagged wound. Benito sucked breath between his teeth. "I wish I was my brother. I
really
wish he was here. I think you've got a open fracture of the fibula. I'll have to see what the hell I can find for a splint. And let's see if that woman left any of Morando's wine. I could use a cup myself, actually. Even
kakotrigi
would do."
Alberto managed a weak laugh. "
Kakotrigi
is like this place. You get used to it. Get to like it."
The hagfish had swum as close to the edge of the shingle as it dared. If anyone had looked down from the walls now, they would have seen the sinuous shape of it in the clear azure water. Fortunately, the fury of the attack—as seen through the eyes of the shaman's hawks—was on the front wall. The Hungarian forces had gained a foothold inside the broken wall, and men were starting to pour through the gap and up onto the walls. The shaman was able to change into the other form and lope ashore. Shaking the water clear of its fur, it ran to where the wall was pounded into steep rubble. Here, with no defenders, it gained entrance. With the fleeing townspeople, it ran through the inner curtain-wall gates.
It began searching. Tasting the air. Relishing the fear, hating the crowd.
On the slope behind Corfu town, Giuliano Lozza marshaled his men. He was de facto commander of the Corfiote irregular army, because he had the most soldiers by far. The Venetian captain had had the sense to recognize an unstoppable local force and go along with it. And across the island, so had everyone else. The story of the naked Magyar having to walk back to camp in the buff spread from village to peasant to fishermen. Greeks loved to laugh, and their sense of humor could be a bit rough.
This man Lozza was no foreigner, they'd decided. This was someone who spoke their language and knew more about olives than any Libri d'Oro they'd ever met. He'd even married one of their own, a peasant woman.
Once they'd called him
Loukoúmia—
fat little sweetmeat. No one did that any more. Not since he'd given a very pointed but nonlethal lesson in swordsmanship to one idiot who had dared put a hand on his wife.
"We beat neither our women nor our olive trees on Corfu," he'd said firmly and finally. It was a local peasant saying, too. That was the final and vital detail. Women asked their menfolk why they hadn't joined.