The dirt road led to an old Roman highway that was in good repair. This took them south along the lagoon and past several bustling towns, many of them walled, all of them flying the lion of San Marco flag, which made Gontran shudder. Their gates released farmers, carriages, horses, and mules, all of which crowded the highway enough to cause the occasional traffic jam, at which point Gontran’s driver cracked his whip and yelled in an Italian dialect so thick it seemed he was unable to understand even himself.
Venice, Sicily, Konstantinopolis, Cordoba, Baghdad, Aleppo, Fustat—these were the Mediterranean’s prosperous cities, Gontran remembered. Aside from different clothes, languages, religions, and governments, it seemed like little had changed since Roman times in these areas, the paesani of Italy as eternal as the fellaheen of Egypt, still raising grain from the Nile muck in the pyramids’ shadows. But if you moved a little inland, just out of sight of rivers and the sea, what did you find? Wasteland. The encroaching forest. Abandoned villages devoured by trees, strangled by vines as strong and thick as anacondas, all working so quickly they grew before your eyes. Paved highways became dirt paths, which themselves became game trails, which vanished into forests so thick you couldn’t pass between them. Pretty, picturesque nature became as deadly as a burning desert, an ocean miles deep, a mountain range miles high. It was a wonder anyone survived out here at all.
Yet it was Gontran’s home. Farms could be found, each with its own church, priest, tower, lord, and peasants, all speaking dialects that were incomprehensible the next town over. From here in the Veneto, if you took the imperial highway, the road swung north through a gap in the Alps and then continued along hundreds of miles of wilderness, eventually coming to Metz, Gontran’s hometown, where his peasant family was almost certainly still alive—if ‘toiling your whole life harder than any animal’ could be called living. Wolves prowled those wilds, and in colder winters they ventured into the towns and even broke into people’s homes, eating whoever they could get.
It took hours for the driver—named Zuan Boscolo—to bring Gontran south along the lagoon’s edge to a town called Clugia. This was a square island built on reclaimed land just inside the lagoon at the tip of the Sottomarina peninsula, itself practically an island bound on the southern flank by the muddy Brenta River. Out of boredom, Boscolo had explained this, though Gontran hardly understood and could barely nod in response to the man’s words.
From a distance, across the marshland, Gontran saw that Clugia was packed with shops, storehouses, steepled churches, and even a couple of small sturdy fortresses built of stone. Houses were constructed on a grid, the buildings interspersed with dark humps of farmland where peasants were seeding their crops and bent over their vegetable gardens in the spring sun. Rowboats and sailboats were moored to the island’s edges like the decorative fringe to a carpet. And then along either side of a narrow causeway connecting the island of Clugia to the Sottomarina peninsula, salt pans had been raised from the lagoon’s shallow muck. These, too, were square, with square grids inside them.
Mathematical Venetians.
By now the sun was up, the beech trees were parting, and Gontran’s captor was driving his carriage across the causeway to Clugia. They stopped, however, at a little fortress about halfway along the causeway, built upon a small island of reclaimed land. This place, Boscolo said, was called the Isola del Buon Castello. Goodcastle Island. To the left and right, salt pans stretched for miles, all tended by figures raking the muck. The salt pans stopped only where the water was too deep, or where canals had been dug to allow ships to pass along the coasts of the islands and the peninsula.
“Le saline.” Zuan Boscolo smiled at Gontran and pointed to the brown squares with his whip. “No è bello. Tu morirai presto.”
Gontran had seen enough. The salt pans were depressing. He would be trapped here forever, and his friends would never rescue him.
They’ve abandoned me. Ra’isa. Diaresso. All of them. They can’t come back and get me. A good ship and crew aren’t worth one guy. Our mission was to build alliances with Italian cities. All of us knew we were expendable.
He looked at his aching wrists, which were sore and red from the rusted iron manacles. These also clasped his ankles. So long as they were fastened there, he could never run away. He would have to shuffle. Had he been less miserable, the thought of fleeing like this—with the maestri’s hounds baying behind him while, up ahead, vipers slithered in the marshes—it might have made him laugh. The best he could manage at the moment was a grin so faint, he could only feel it. Even if he could have looked into a decent mirror, the tinge at one edge of his lips might have been invisible to him.
He thought about Diaresso, who had barely smiled in weeks, since he was so unhappy with the mission and the uprising. Gontran’s lungs flexed, and something like a laugh forced its way through his nostrils.
Diaresso. He was right to get off with the Narentines. If he’d stayed on the ship, he might have been captured in the doge’s palace, too. He can still get home.
The thought of Diaresso continuing to be free, sailing across the world—it was encouraging to Gontran.
At least one of us made it. Even if I get killed, the fight goes on.
The fortress on the Isola del Buon Castello consisted of a watchtower, a dormitory, a barn, and a storehouse, all built from brick and bound within four walls. After passing through the gatehouse, Boscolo brought the horse and the cart into the barn, giving them to a stableboy who reminded Gontran of Joseph. The thought was like a stab to the gut. Boscolo, meanwhile, pulled Gontran from the carriage, brought him to the dormitory, and locked the manacle around his left wrist to an iron bar that was sunk into the brick wall. Then Boscolo left.
The chain was so short that Gontran could only move a few feet. If he sat on the floor by the wall, he needed to hold up his arm, which still ached from the bastinado. Lying on the thin gray ragged blanket on the dirt floor was only possible if he kept his arm by the wall.
He looked at the cold, dark dormitory. A few other blankets were scattered on the floor. The doorway was open to the sun, the swaying beeches that were greening with spring leaves, the cicadas just starting to rattle, the endless brown salt pans, the thin figures bent over them.
He woke to a man punching his face and screaming. This brought his health down to 16/100. Gontran rolled away and covered his eyes, which made his chain rattle. Someone pulled the blanket out from under him, leaving him with only the bare wall and the dirt floor. A man said something in what might have been a Slavic language, and a few other men laughed. When Gontran opened his eyes and peaked through his fingers, he saw that four sunburned slaves had entered the dormitory. They were all drenched in sweat—despite the evening cold—and lying on blankets. One slave had taken Gontran’s blanket and wrapped himself in it. They must have already eaten dinner, since it seemed so late, and they were burping at one another and chuckling.
I slept through the whole day, Gontran thought. I even missed dinner!
Nonetheless, he kept still and silent, wanting only to be invisible. Gontran noticed that none of the slaves wore chains. Were they actually workers? Their masters, bosses, lords—whatever they were called—seemed to trust them to remain here.
Gontran felt hungry. Although it was probably impossible to fill his stomach at the moment, he told himself it was nonetheless good to feel this way, uncomfortable as it was, since it probably meant that he was no longer ill, and had survived his brush with medieval European medicine. He kept his eyes shut, only peeking through the lashes of one to ensure that none of his new companions attacked him again. At the same time, he was tempted to ask if they had some food, or even if any knew Drosaik. It was a small world. Already Gontran had forgotten the names of the other Slavs the Paralos had rescued from the Liona. If only he could remember…
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Thinking about them also made Gontran realize that he had heard no news about the Paralos. This was probably a good thing. Annibale might have come here himself, had he destroyed the uprising’s best ship; he certainly would have sent any crew members he had captured this way in order to prove, again and again, that he had defeated Gontran. The man was infuriated that a peasant had bested him in a fight. Maybe no act in Annibale’s mind was too extreme in his search for revenge. Yet to kill Gontran was nothing compared to enslaving him, along with everyone he cared about.
As daylight faded, the temperature dropped, and to keep warm Gontran tucked his hands into his armpits and sat cross-legged so he could press his cold bare feet inside the creases behind his knees, all while moving slowly and carefully to keep his chains from ringing. Yet he was soon shivering in the dark. There were no candles or torches. How could he sleep like this? The other slaves were already snoring. They might be trapped here while they were awake, but one or two blankets kept them warm enough to let their minds roam free through dreams.
Outside were screeching bugs, howling wolves, hooting owls. Through the doorway the sky was blue with starlight—whole galaxies speckled the gap—and the silhouettes of oaks shook in the wind, their leaves silvering like schools of fish, making a rushing sound like forest brooks. At one point, a shadow with glowing red eyes stalked the darkness. What really frightened Gontran, however, were the spiders. Nasty big ones had made spiderwebs in the corners of the dormitory. The mere thought of spiders, let alone the sight of them, was almost too much for him. Although even the word “spider” on its own could make him feel like he was suffocating, he did his best to avoid thinking about them—telling himself that he would smash any that came near.
Gontran couldn’t sleep. It was too cold, he needed to lie down, and he had already slept all day. The slaves, on the other hand, must have been exhausted from working the salt pans. They could have been almost as uncomfortable as Gontran in this dormitory, the difference being that their exhaustion outweighed their discomfort. Tomorrow Gontran would join them, and he felt stressed over how weak he would be before even starting. They might kill him if he failed to work hard enough. He wouldn’t be worth the upkeep. Barring that, exhaustion might get him. Working on the salt pans was no joke. Only being sent to the mines or a cheap brothel was worse.
Deciding on a new strategy, Gontran imitated the snoring of the closest slave, inhaling when the slave inhaled, exhaling when the slave exhaled. In the next instant, Boscolo was returning the other manacle to his left wrist, and the doorway was blue with dawn.
I slept! Gontran thought.
Yawning, smacking their lips, rubbing their eyes, the other slaves climbed to their feet and marched outside. Gontran followed. Behind him, Boscolo clutched his whip. A short sword was also sheathed at his side. Gontran avoided staring at it.
At the barn, the slaves picked up rakes and broad-brimmed hats. Boscolo indicated, via growls and gestures, that Gontran should take the shovel and wheelbarrow that were stored there. Having done this, Gontran followed the slaves to a beached rowboat, though the manacles around his ankles slowed him down, even with Boscolo shoving him from behind.
Gontran and the four slaves loaded the wheelbarrow into the rowboat, climbed aboard, and rowed a little distance across the canal to the closest salt pan. Climbing out, the slaves started raking the pans. These were really just walls of mud, dirt, and sand enclosing square-shaped pools of seawater. The seawater was let in through a hole to the lagoon. Once the pan was full, the hole was plugged, and the sun evaporated the water, leaving a mixture of salt and dirt. The slaves separated the dirt and raked the salt into piles, which Gontran shoveled into the wheelbarrow. This he placed in the rowboat, which he then oared back to the Isola del Buon Castello, depositing the salt in the storehouse, which was protected by a single armed guard.
Boscolo, who had been guiding Gontran this entire time, gestured to the white mounds of salt glowing inside the storehouse. “Oro bianco!”
White gold.
Gontran worked with the other slaves, and Boscolo sat on a wooden stool in the shade of some nearby oaks on the Isola del Buon Castello. The sun had yet to rise, and Gontran’s stomach grumbled. On top of the fact that he hadn’t eaten in three days, he also needed to deal with the way medieval people rarely ate breakfast, instead gorging themselves on enormous lunches and dinners. Soon enough he saw, as he shoveled, that Boscolo had fallen asleep. Gontran eyed the slaves as they raked salt from the water, then looked to the other salt pans extending into the distance around Clugia, and the other slaves working there.
Why don’t they run?
The real question was: where could they go? Towns and cities were often hostile to strangers. In the feudal world, everyone had their place, which meant that loners had probably been expelled from their communities for good reason. Although neither the police nor modern surveillance technology existed, people would still view you with suspicion if you were wandering the roads on your own without any kind of obvious excuse. Pilgrims, merchants, and barber-surgeons were common enough, but they had a distinct appearance, often carrying plenty of supplies and moving in groups for safety. In contrast, escaped slaves and peasants carried nothing, being so impoverished that they sometimes even lacked clothes. They were also usually alone. Gontran could pretend to be a holy fool—a raving madman wearing a few different coatings of mud, and nothing else—but that would be difficult to pull off. And plus, if he ran away, Venice would be looking for him. Soldiers and slave catchers on the hunt would stop any men walking the roads by themselves, regardless of their appearance.
As Gontran worked, and the sun rose over the misty lagoon, and he watched the slaves raking the salt pans, he knew that if Herakleia were here, she would already be hatching plans to radicalize the slaves, and either escape, or establish a slave republic right here in the Veneto, in the heart of Venetian territory. A maroon, that’s what such things were called in the old world. But Gontran started thinking that he had given enough to the uprising. It was always so demanding, it was like an infant, ceaseless in its needs, perishing the instant you neglected it—but how many times had he had risked his life for it? On this voyage alone, he had been captured and enslaved twice.
Enslave me once, shame on you. Enslave me twice…
To be here in the Veneto likewise meant that he was physically closer to his family than he’d been in years. They haunted his dreams and waking thoughts. Always he wanted to return to Metz to convince them to join him, though at this point he had no idea what he would even say. He couldn’t tell them to come to Venice, so he would have to tell them to come to Trebizond, and none of that was possible until he got these damn manacles off. Already they were tearing at his flesh, which the thick salt water wasn’t helping. The cuts stung.
The slaves worked in silence in the sunny heat, their sweat stinging their eyes and dripping into the water, their mouths gaping for breath. It was bright, oppressive, miserable. Before long, Gontran’s muscles and bones were all back to aching. It was a miracle he could work at all after experiencing the strappado.
He labored in silence. More than ever, he missed his friends from the Paralos. Hard work was inescapable in this time and place, but with friends you could make the hours fly by, almost commanding the sun to flash across the sky quick as a sparrow, at least as long as the conversation flowed. With people like Diaresso and Ra’isa, you could talk about anything—any thought that popped into your mind they would listen to, chew over, and comment on, to the point where they were now almost a part of Gontran’s own personality. He knew how they would act if they were here with him now. Diaresso would be grumbling—rightfully—about infidels, and longing for his lute, his crossbow, and the company of Queen Tamar. Ra’isa would be using her terrifying psychokinetic abilities to make mincemeat of the slave drivers.
In the long hours and days aboard the Paralos, almost everyone had revealed everything there was to know about each other. They all knew about friends and family members they had never met as well as home villages they had never seen. Diaresso had told Gontran so much about hot sandy Tomboutou, he felt like he had lived there, fishing in his long narrow dugout canoe in the wide river Jeliba under the Harmattan haze, growing rice in the floodplains, feasting and singing and dancing at the festivals beneath mosques and shrines made of mud. Ra’isa came from a small group of nomadic herdsmen who lived in the yellow hills in the al-Akrad around Mount Judi, where Noah’s ark came to rest, and where Noah’s tomb was itself now just a ruined monastery. Gontran felt like he had walked with her herds of goats and fought off the hyenas that were always troubling her family. Ra’isa and Diaresso, too, could have navigated Metz with their eyes closed, Gontran had told them so much about it.
There was almost nothing left to reveal about themselves. This forced them instead to consider hypotheticals. If Emperor Narses were chained up here right now, what would you do with him? Inside jokes that made everyone laugh were ceaseless. There was camaraderie. They were a family, a tribe, friends drunk on each other’s company—
“Mezzogiorno!” Boscolo shouted from the shade. “Pranzo!”