There was a clatter of hooves behind him. Benito prepared to jump. Only his foot was now stuck in this damned stirrup. If he jumped he'd drag . . . He hunched in the saddle and struggled with his foot.
"Get a move on, Benito," snapped Erik. The clatter had come from him, returning to see what had happened to Benito. He slapped the rump of Benito's horse and the vile animal took off as if someone had shoved something red-hot in an unmentionable spot. With Benito swearing and clinging to the saddle, they headed upward into the rougher terrain. At least his horse was following Erik's now.
By the time they reached the ridgeline, the sun was just burning its way through the clouds. Benito had long since abandoned any pretense of "riding." He was just trying to stay on the Godforsaken animal. It took all his finely honed burglar's acrobatic skills to do so, and all his strength, too. He'd managed to get his foot free of the stirrup, at last. That meant when he fell off—not if, but when—he could try to fall clear.
When they got up to some pines on the ridge, Erik called a halt. More precisely, he pulled his horse to a halt, and Benito's horse stopped also.
Very abruptly. Benito continued for a few yards without it.
He got to his feet, to find the Icelander looking at him, his shoulders shaking with laughter. "Why didn't you say
you couldn't ride at all, you crazy kid!"
"Uh. I
have
been to classes.
Case Vecchie
can all ride, but, well, I was a bridge-brat, Erik." Defensively: "I've only ridden a horse about five or six times before this, you know."
Erik snorted. "Well, you can't count this as another time. I've seen a sack of meal do a better job of it. And those things hanging down are stirrups. You are supposed to put your feet in them."
"I couldn't reach them."
Erik shook his head. "We'll shorten them now. Help this poor woman down, Benito."
Benito did. She almost fell off the horse—and then pushed away from him. "Who are you?" she asked warily, her eyes darting looking for a place to run. There was naked fear in that voice.
Benito waved his hands at her, trying to look helpful and harmless at the same time. "We're Venetians." It was easier than trying to explain. "You're safe now."
The young woman crumpled and began to cry. Then she started speaking Greek. At speed.
"Whoa." Benito squatted down beside her; it seemed it was up to him to try to calm her down. Well, he was smaller than Erik; maybe that made him look less threatening. "We don't speak Greek," he said gently. "I can't help you if I don't understand."
"They killed Georgio!" she wailed—but softly, hardly more than a whisper. "They—they—" she dissolved into tears, and Benito patted her shoulder, thinking that trying to hold her would probably be a bad idea at this point.
She got herself under control, a lot faster than he would have thought. "What happened?" he asked. "Why did you come down out of the hills?"
She gulped for air. "See, some of the goats were missing. He thought they'd gone home. So he went down to the house. And when he didn't come back I went down to look for him. He was . . ."
Her eyes were round with the memory of things Benito didn't want to think about. "They were torturing him. Burning him to get him to tell them where he'd hidden the money." She shuddered, then said, plaintively, "We don't
have
any money. Just a few pennies. We've only been married for two months."
She began to cry again; great heaving sobs, wringing her hands together so hard that her knuckles were bone-white. Then she caught her breath. She seemed determined to tell them; to get the vileness out. "I ran in to try and help him. The one . . . the one who . . . he said: 'Here's the bitch. We'll get it out of her instead.' They cut Georgio's throat. They cut my man's throat like you would butcher a hog."
"Here." Erik had produced a small, squat bottle. "Manfred gave me some of his armor polish. Give her a drink, Benito."
Benito did. She choked, but then drank some more. The woman looked at Erik. "At least you killed them."
Erik looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Look. Is there anyone we can take you to? Somewhere safe where they'll look after you?"
She laughed bitterly. It was a horrible, tragic sound. "Safe! Safe like you Venetians sitting in your fortress. There is nowhere safe for the poor peasants. We must hide in the hills."
"So . . . there is no one we can take you to?" Erik persisted, but without much hope.
She shrugged. "I have a brother on a galley at sea. Georgio's parents are somewhere in the hills." She looked at both of them with resignation, as if she was perfectly prepared for them to abandon her.
Erik cleared his throat, and looked worriedly back down the hill. "Look. We have to get on. I've got to get to Count Dentico's villa. My . . . my . . . a lady . . . I must go and see if she's all right. But we can't just leave you here."
"I have nowhere to go," she repeated tonelessly.
Erik cocked a wary ear toward the slope. "Then you'd better come with us until we find a place for you. Benito, let's shorten those stirrups. And try holding on with your knees."
Benito shook his head. "Erik, the only thing I wasn't holding on with were my teeth. And that was only because the mane kept bouncing around when I tried to bite it."
The Greek peasant woman managed a tremulous laugh. "I can ride. My uncle was a groom for Count Di Valva. The Count wasn't there very often. Where is this place you wish to find? I can probably get you in the right direction, at least." Underneath her shock and her grief, she was recovering some hope, and only because they had not offered to abandon her.
Erik nodded. "You ride, then. Benito can cling on like a tick behind you. The estate is somewhere near a place called Giannades. Do you have any idea where that is?"
She nodded. "I haven't been there. But it is to the west of Kérkira."
She went over to the horse and shortened the stirrups quickly and efficiently; clearly she knew what she was doing. Then she hitched up her skirts in a most unladylike but very practical way, and mounted with an ease that Benito envied.
"It's best that she does something," Erik said, quietly. "She's ready to go to pieces, Benito. She's like a glass that's cracked to bits; one touch, and she'll shatter."
"I'm not surprised."
Erik sighed worriedly. "That could be what happened to my Svanhild. Come on, let's go. If you look over at Kérkira, you'll see Emeric has troops coming in by the column. That's a good few thousand men down there. We should move before they get too organized, never mind before they notice a couple of missing Croats."
Caesare Aldanto's body slept. Long, long ago Chernobog had learned this was a necessity. They died quickly if you did not allow them to rest.
Caesare lay on a cot in the tent that had been allocated to him, and twitched occasionally, as a dog might when dreaming.
Chernobog's other dog, yellow and feral, prowled the hills. The shaman had been told to look for holy places, to sniff them out so they could be rededicated.
It should have been easy. It was proving impossible. The smell of magic was easy enough to find. The trouble was . . . everywhere reeked of it. Up in the wind-tumbled sky his two aerial eyes flew hither and yon, looking for groves. Or temples. Or even standing stones.
So far, all he'd seen through their infinite detail-seeing eyes were churches. The shaman-dog shivered, thinking about those. His master could and no doubt would rededicate some of those to his purpose, but it was a dangerous process, and there was that about them which struck at him. He could, of course, strike back . . . but that could easily draw the attention of the master's adversary. And the shaman was not ready for that.
The shaman-dog stumbled and sneezed. Pollen. It seemed as if every plant on this accursed island was flowering. Like the magic of this place, the pollen was in the air everywhere.
He left the roadway in haste. Horses, and a double-span of donkeys struggling to drag a heavy cannon, were coming along it. Horses took a great aversion to this body-form. They would smell him out and chase and kick him if they could. This road was busy with troops and cannons coming along it. By evening at least a third of the guns would be in place. Already the pounding thunder was beginning. The shaman wrinkled his nose in distaste. He didn't like the smell of gunpowder either. It was a new thing. The shaman hated new things.
"It's not that serious, Hildi!" Bjarni's voice was gruff, but underneath the impatience was affection, she could tell. "Just a few fragments of rock knocked off by a bullet. Head wounds always bleed like mad. Don't fuss about it. Just bandage it up so that when Kari or Gulta come back with a way out of here for us we can go. We might have to leave the horses."
"But they are such beautiful horses!" Svanhild protested, wrapping a torn section of her petticoat around her brother's head and ear. Now she was glad she had some of those travesties of Venetian gowns that her brothers had insisted she have made up. The masses of petticoats made excellent bandages. "If we leave them behind—those Magyars—"
"They won't be hurt. It's us they're after, not the horses." Bjarni managed a strained chuckle. "Actually, those brutes treat their horses better than they treat their wives. The horses will probably be better off with them."
Gulta and Kari scrambled down into the cave mouth. "There's only one other way out, like I said, Bjarni. And they've got people up there. Rolled a rock down on us."
"But there are a good few caves up there," said Gulta. "Looks like one of them is used. We could hide Svanhild up there."
Svanhild raised herself up. "I can shoot better than most of the men. And I will stand with my clan, not hide up in some other cave. We cannot get out of this valley? Well, so what? They cannot get in, either. We have food and water. Let them sit out there."
She did not add that if her brothers and hearthmen died, and she were hiding in a cave, her best option would be to fling herself off the side of the mountain.
"And tonight we'll slip out and cut a few throats," said Kari evilly.
Bjarni regarded him with a jaundiced eye. "Well, if they can get to shoot into the cave mouth the ricochets will kill us."
"Without being able to shoot around corners they'll hard pressed to do that," pointed out Hrolf. "From the lip over there we can target anyone who comes into the valley. They can't even roll rocks onto us. And there is not enough growing here to burn properly."
Bjarni sniffed. "They don't have to. They'll smoke us out."
The villa was still standing as Erik and Benito rode toward it. Not torched, as most of the others they'd seen so far. The presence of Thalia, the peasant girl they'd rescued, had a very beneficial effect. They'd been forced to the back paths and side roads by patrols. She had actually managed to draw the hastily hiding or fleeing peasants back to them to get some directions. They would have struggled to find their way, otherwise.
Erik kicked his horse into a gallop when the villa Dentico came in sight, and rode straight up to it, as hard and as fast as he could make the horse gallop.
Benito, clinging to Thalia as she followed Erik, knew from Erik's own lectures that this was plain foolishness. He also knew stopping Erik would be beyond his ability.
Besides, Thalia was the one in control of this four-hoofed bollock-cruncher, not him. He was just trying to stay on.
Erik dismounted in a leap, and ran into the house calling "Svanhild! Svanhild!" at the top of his lungs. Alerting every single enemy within hearing distance, or lying in wait in the villa, that there was someone up here. Benito winced; he had expected nothing less.
Erik did at least have that tomahawk in his hand.
Benito dismounted with as much skill as he could muster, and pelted after Erik. "Catch his horse. And stay out here!" he shouted to Thalia. What he expected to find in there would be no sight for her. He raced into the villa with the Shetlander knife in his hand, wishing desperately for his rapier.
However, what Benito found was merely Erik, examining some bloodstains in the hallway. The blood had long since dried and gone a reddish brown, but a fair amount of it was splattered onto the whitewashed walls in various spots. There had been a lot of killing done here.
Benito swallowed. "Erik. I'm sorry."
But to his astonishment, Erik smiled at him. "It wasn't their blood. Or at least, not all their blood."
He ventured closer, and peered at the bloodstains as Erik was doing. He couldn't see how Erik could tell anything from them. "Vinlander blood is a different color?" ventured Benito.
Erik swatted his ear. From past comparative experience, Benito knew he was doing it gently. "No, you young idiot. There are no bodies. Somebody took the bodies away. I don't see that being the Hungarians, not if the bodies were Svanhild and her people. And with that many men and this much blood splashed about . . . I don't see that they'd have just captured everyone."
Well, it made sense when Erik pointed it out, if you accepted the idea that the Hungarians wouldn't take away the bodies of their victims. "So what happened?"
Erik shrugged. "How would I know? But at least they made a fight of it. They weren't caught unawares because there are no bloodstains anywhere except here."
Presumably Erik had already been everywhere but there. "So where do we go now?"
"We try to track them," said Erik, heading for the front door. "Ask anyone we can find, I suppose. It isn't going to be easy. Actually, I should say
I
try to track them. You should get up to the north coast and see if you can find a fisherman willing to transport you."
"The siege isn't going anywhere," he pointed out. "I can help you find them."
Erik shook his head. "With the numbers of men and guns that Emeric is moving in, this is going to be no light siege. And no besieged castle is that secure anyway. Days can count, Benito. Days mean lives. Lives of people like Thalia. I am a knight sworn to defend them. That doesn't mean I can let you waste time. Duty is not a narrow thing; you have yours, and I have mine. Mine is to find Svanhild if I can, then get back to Manfred with all possible speed. Yours is to make all possible speed to Venice, or at least to someone who can get help from Venice."