Gontran smelled Boscolo coming long before he heard or saw him. The reek of wine proceeded the maestro like a specter. He was already drunk when he stumbled through the doorway in the blue morning. Gontran was waiting with his eyes closed and all his muscles tensed, though he was careful to breathe regularly, and even to move his eyeballs beneath their lids as though he was deep in REM sleep.
“Svegliati, culo di merda,” Boscolo slurred. The wine stench pouring from his open mouth was so overpowering, Gontran worried it would suffocate him.
As Boscolo knelt to unlock him, Gontran leaped up, tackled the maestro to the floor, pulled the short sword from his scabbard, and stabbed his chest. Blood spurted everywhere, and Boscolo groaned, waking the other slaves. Wasting no time, Gontran tore the sword free from Boscolo’s chest and stabbed him repeatedly until he stopped moving. Then he found the key in Boscolo’s pocket and unlatched the manacle around his ankle. He was free.
Gasping, Gontran wiped the sword on Boscolo’s clothes, then donned the overseer’s belt and sheathed his sword there. Seeing that his hands were covered in blood, he wiped them on Boscolo’s pants—the corpse’s only item of clothing which was still relatively clean.
Gontran was drenched in blood and sweat. It had felt cold when he first woke to the darkness—thinking that this was it, this was the morning he would break free. Now he was roasting hot, though his sweat felt chilly against his flesh as blood throbbed in his ears and pulsed in his forehead.
He looked at the four slaves. They sat against the wall, cowering. Before Gontran could speak, one of them—it was Béla the blanket thief—stood and sprinted through the doorway. Was he running to get help, or just trying to escape? Gontran watched him go, thought of pursuing him, then turned back to the three remaining slaves.
“Come with me, stay here, or run away,” he said.
Two shook their heads. István stared at him.
“You were the one who told me I needed to get those manacles off,” Gontran said.
“Yes, but I did not mean—”
Someone was shouting in the distance. Dogs were baying.
He was running to get help.
Gontran picked up one of Béla’s blankets and stuffed it into his pocket as best he could. Then he ran through the doorway and out past the gate to the mainland. Sprinting along the mud causeway past the marshes and salt pans where herons were already spearing frogs with their long sharp beaks, he heard someone running behind him. When he looked back, he saw that it was István.
“Change of heart?” Gontran gasped.
István said nothing, and quickly caught up to Gontran. They crossed the stone bridge arching over the brown sluggish Brenta River, then turned west, taking the old Roman road to Verona. This was at István’s insistence.
“There I have the friend,” he said between breaths. “They help.”
Hopefully better than your other friends, Gontran thought, too breathless to speak.
Horses were galloping behind them. Gontran made the mistake of looking over his shoulder. He saw, on the causeway, two horsemen clutching lanterns—it was still cloudy and dim—riding so fast that their mounts’ legs had vanished into a thundering blur, as though they were floating torsos hurtling over the morning mist. Loping beside them and barking as though their lives depended on it were two mastiffs the size of lions.
Gontran was too out of breath to say anything to István. Instead, he tapped his shoulder, then pointed to the wooded marshland.
István shook his head. “Snakes.”
“Who cares about snakes?” Gontran gasped.
“Some have the poison.”
“I’ll take poison snakes over slave owners any day.”
Gontran ran off the road and plunged into the woods. Shrugging, István followed. By this time, it seemed like the horses were pounding Gontran’s ears, while the screaming mastiffs were spattering his neck with saliva.
He was so out of breath he felt like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. His mouth gaped so wide it seemed his lips would tear. The game voice warned that his stamina was collapsing, even if, as a Professional Runner (7/10), he could outpace almost every other person.
I’m too out of shape, I’ll never make it.
The woods were so thick, they made running impossible. Gontran and István slowed down. This would either make the horsemen give up or dismount. Nothing would stop the dogs, however—save Boscolo’s sword.
You already came through for me once, Gontran thought as he drew the sword and hacked through the bushes. Don’t let me down.
Growling and snarling, the mastiffs hurled through the brush like cannonballs made of fangs and muscle. Gontran turned and clumsily raised his sword just in time, clutching it with both hands as one mastiff knocked him down and impaled itself on the blade. Burning hot blood gushed over Gontran’s hands and covered his chest, but the mastiff kept roaring and snapping at his face, its weight crushing the breath from his lungs. Nearly all the dog’s blood had drained through its massive gaping wound before Gontran could push off its body, its lifeless eyes like enormous gleaming marbles staring up past the swaying tree trunks to the sky. Gontran’s ability with mêlée weapons was low (3/10), but this lucky critical hit boosted his XP so much that he almost leveled up.
As for the other mastiff, it had seized István’s ankle, drawing blood from its fangs, and the poor man was screaming for it to let go, although whenever he moved, the dog sank its jaws in deeper and snarled.
Gontran staggered up from the leaves and the underbrush and—covered in blood, as though soaked in red paint—lurched toward the mastiff. It growled at him while still holding István’s ankle in its jaws, which were foaming with blood and saliva. István kicked its head; the mastiff bit him harder, making István cry out.
Gontran hesitated. This mastiff was even bigger and nastier than the other one. How was he supposed to stop this thing? It was at least as big as he was!
Men were shouting in the distance. Gontran lunged forward and stabbed the mastiff with all his strength. The dog howled, released István, and attacked Gontran—who pinned its neck to the ground with his leg. There, just as with Boscolo, Gontran withdrew the sword, stabbed, then withdrew it again—repeating this until the dog stopped breathing. At this point, he leveled up to Apprentice with mêlêe weapons (4/10).
Getting the hang of this, Gontran thought.
He fell off the monster, exhausted beyond belief, but István helped him up, thanking him as they limped together through the woods—covered in blood, saliva, and leaves, an obvious red trail behind them. Two glowing lanterns were hovering between the trees at their backs, and the sun had yet to rise. Looking back, Gontran saw the two dead mastiffs lying in the undergrowth like humps of meat. Mosquitoes were already swarming around their gleaming wounds.
“I hate dogs,” he whispered.
István released a quiet laugh.
Gontran cut through the woods ahead, crashing through leaves, fighting his way over the ground that turned to muck, then streams, then solid earth, then muck again. The Veneto couldn’t make up its mind. It was land, river, mud, island, sea, forest, field, marsh—everything except mountain—all at once.
They both ran so hard they lost track of time and space. Trees, bushes, and other plants surrounded them.
Cut through some leaves and branches, find more leaves and branches, then cut through those.
Eventually Gontran was so out of breath that he quietly asked István if they could stop. Both threw themselves against an enormous, ancient oak and breathed as silently as possible, listening for their pursuers. Aside from the peeping insects and crying birds and the blood thundering in their ears, they heard nothing.
Gontran noticed the red bite marks on István’s ankle. Pulling the blanket from his pocket, Gontran tore a strip away and bandaged the wound. István nodded his thanks.
This poor guy’s dead if that dog had rabies, Gontran thought.
Both men were too afraid to speak. The slave catchers might have been close, but moving quietly and patiently, like cats stalking prey.
Gontran gestured to István to get his attention, then mouthed the words: “Where are we?”
István mouthed back: “I do not know.”
Gontran looked around, but the sun was still too low, and trees and plants were everywhere. It was impossible to get his bearings. For all he knew, he and István could have been a few feet or a few miles from the road.
He shook his head. I’d give anything for a cup of water…all we can do now is rest.
It took a few minutes for him to get his wind back. He wasn’t in such bad shape as he’d thought. Living in the Middle Ages for almost a year had toughened him. Back in the old world, he could barely finish a single lap around the high school track. But here he ran fast, and for a long time. He had run through the woods like an animal.
By now, Gontran and István were sitting with their backs to the giant oak, their legs stretched out in the brush. Both men had caught their breath and were slapping the mosquitos whining around their ears.
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No cure for malaria in this period, Gontran thought. No medicine.
An enormous brown scaly snake slithered over Gontran’s legs, then István’s, flicking out its tongue. A pair of what looked like peacock feathers sprouted from behind its ears.
Both men held still as the snake passed over them. Gontran calmly picked it up and tossed it aside, where the snake continued into the brush.
“It’s just a snake,” Gontran whispered.
Yet István was terrified. “Maybe we go back.”
“Over my dead body,” Gontran said.
“But Boscolo’s men come with more dogs. They find our smell. Their Capitano Annibale Loredan. They never stop hunting us.”
“That Béla guy turned out to be a real asshole. He was an asshole from the moment I met him.”
“In some days he is free. He is the prisoner.”
“What was he in for?”
“He work in Murano. Making glass. One day he leave without permesso. He want to see family in Magyarorság.”
“That’s it? You need permission to leave?”
“Murano glass is secret. Venice has many secret. He is lucky to live—more lucky with short prison term.”
“Must be good at making glass.”
“He very good.”
“Didn’t do much for his personality, though.”
“No. His personality is not good. I work with him in Murano. I am glassblower.” He coughed. “I first learn from my uncle Orban. He engineer in Rome. But glassblowing, it not good for, how do you say?” He gestured to his chest.
“Your lungs? Are you also in prison because you tried to run away to protect your lungs?”
“No.” István sighed. “I have very long sentence.”
“What for?”
“Someone tell I want to sell trade secrets to other cities.”
“Well? Did you?”
István scowled. “It does not matter. Venetian merchants cannot control my thinking or my moving. I am free man. I go where I want.”
Sounds like this guy would like the uprising, Gontran thought. But he decided not to bring it up.
Having caught their breath, they stood, looked around, then continued through the brush as quietly as possible, though soon enough they found themselves fighting through the woods, just as before. The forest’s density amazed Gontran. He knew that in the old world, northern Italy was developed—with towns, cities, factories, farms, roads, and railways all over the place. But he was in the dark ages. The rich had fled to Venice; almost everyone else had died thanks to plague or war. This meant that for centuries, nothing had stopped the forest’s growth. Gontran and István could have been walking through the remains of ancient Roman towns without even knowing it; every trace of those places had vanished. It was post-apocalyptic. The few people who remained behind could only rely on themselves, and probably had no defensive armaments save a few rusted swords and spears. Isolation was their defense.
The land here—it was either the March of Verona or Friuli, Gontran was unsure—was well-watered. Rivers, streams, and ponds were everywhere. With almost every other step, Gontran’s bare feet sank into mud. He and István were thirsty, but it was hard to find water that looked or tasted clean. It was almost all sludge, but even when they found a clear stream flowing in a gully between bushes and trees whose roots stuck out from the dirt, it sometimes tasted salty. They were still too close to the sea, which only needed to rise a little to flood these plains. Nonetheless, clean water could sometimes be found, and after drinking their fill Gontran and István washed the blood and filth from their flesh and clothes as best they could.
It was late afternoon when they emerged into a field of tall grass rattling with cicadas. Gontran almost wanted to collapse after wrestling with so many trees. Yet István stopped him. In the distance, above the green wavering stalks—tall for so early in the season—was a gray rectangular tower of stone. It rose from a forested mountain, its single dark window stained brown from centuries of snow and rain.
The instant István spotted it, he pulled Gontran down in terror.
“Faszom!” István said. This was apparently a swear.
“Look familiar?” Gontran whispered.
“It Monselice,” István whispered back. “We run very far. Many miles. We are halfway to the Verona.”
“Monselice, never heard of it. Is it good or bad?”
“It depends on you. It is as good or bad as you make it.”
“Will they kill us if we try to drink some water or get some food?”
István shrugged. “I don’t know. This is not Venetian land. Now we are in Németország—German Roman Empire land.”
“Jesus, how many Romes are there? One was enough.”
István chuckled. “Yes, that true. There is pope city of the Rome in Italy. Then there is German Roman Empire in many places. Then there is Romagna, the impero orientale of Greeks. Too many Romes.”
“But the Venetians just control the coast, huh?”
“Yes. They have no land legs.” István nodded to the tower. “This is Monselice watch tower for Via Imperii. First the road goes from Velence and Clodia to Verona, then south to Rome, or north to the Germany.”
“Yeah,” Gontran said.
He had taken the road south when he had first fled Metz. But the word “road” was a bit generous when it came to the Via Imperii. The Roman paving was stomped by thousands of feet and hooves every year, but hadn’t been maintained for centuries. This meant that it was mostly mud in warmer months, and snowbound when it was cold.
“Where you go?” István said. “North to Germany?”
“No idea. Just trying to get away from the Venetians at the moment.”
“Many people feel same these days.” István smiled, though he did so wearily. His face gleamed with sweat, and his eyes were hollowed with exhaustion. Gontran assumed that he himself looked either the same, or worse.
What I’d give for a shower, he thought. A change of clothes. Some bread and cheese. A cup of wine. Even a hammock on my ship. My friends.
“What about you?” Gontran said. “Are you just going to Verona?”
“Verona first, then my homeland—Magyarorság. I think you call it Hungary.”
“Hungary.” Gontran nodded. But he was drawing a blank.
What’s Hungary? A country with a funny name—everyone there is always very hungry. Not to generalize, of course. Did the name come from the Huns? No. It’s something else, the ten tribes or arrows or something. The Austro-Hungarian Empire. And what was that? Land of the inbred Habsburgs, the hapless Habsburgs always dragging their massive overgrown chins behind them. Their chinny-chin-chins.
Is it ableist to make fun of the genetic diseases of royalty? No, because fuck royalty.
The Habsburgs conquered by marriage—marrying cousins again and again for hundreds of years and expecting that to cause no issues. Weird. Did all those cousins look sexy, with their big fat heaving dowries? Habsburgs rubbing their hands together and licking their lips whenever they see their cousins. ‘I could produce so many purebred offspring with my hot cousin over there.’ First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes genetic disease.
Getting back to Hungary. A country in central Europe—funny how the concept of Europe just like doesn’t exist in the Middle Ages. Can’t remember anyone saying the word ‘Europe’ in the game. They talk about Rome or Christendom, but Europe? Never. Where did the word ‘Europe’ even come from? Europa? A beautiful maiden carried off by Jupiter in the form of a bull from the sea. That’s it. Europe is really just Northwest Asia. A subcontinent. A growth. A tumor swollen to bursting with cancerous cells it smeared all over the old world, letting every last little town grow cancers of its own.
But we were discussing the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They had powdered wigs. Amazing to think that something so old-fashioned once looked cool to people. They probably wore them because they didn’t want to bathe. Too much trouble when you need to heat up the water with a fire under your bathtub. But some Native Americans thought Europeans were disgusting, didn’t they? Maybe some still do. Europeans also had silk shirts. Austro-Hungarians had Mozart. Amazing music transformed into background noise from being overplayed.
Austro-Hungarian Empire balkanized after the First World War. Austria more interested in music than world domination. But it was still Hitler’s birthplace. He lived in cosmopolitan Vienna, rubbing shoulders with Jewish soldiers until his twenties or thirties, didn’t he? A land of anti-semitism. Hitler the poster child for growing up under bad parents—an abusive dad, a coddling mom—in a backward society, but Europe was (and still is) overrun with all kinds of people who grew up and live and think just like Hitler, except instead of Jews they hate Muslims, Roma, and Russians now. Whoever the empire says is bad, they hate, and then they act like they’re so brave and smart for repeating whatever nonsense they heard in the corporate media.
Anti-semitism. Scapegoating minorities of all kinds, not just Jews, to protect an unjust collapsing system. But Jews had a place in the feudal world. They were merchants and moneylenders. The Old Testament said it was okay to lend to the goyim; the New Testament forbid Christians to lend or borrow. Everybody knows that. Jesus himself had no property at all. He was basically a wandering healer, revolutionary, and philosopher. He whipped the money-changers with a rope in the temple. When modernity came along, the goyim figured out that actually, it’s okay to borrow and lend money. They didn’t need the Jews anymore—but the goyim definitely needed their stuff. And so came pogroms and death camps. Herakleia had some weird term for it. Primitive accumulation. The same as the witch hunts and the religious wars and the genocide of indigenous people and slavery and colonialism and imperialism and Nazism. The reason people look up to ancient Rome but not medieval Europe. They like the slaves, they like the money that buys all that fine art, that powerful military full of handsome muscular Italian dudes in skirts, nothing gay about that at all. Medieval Europe sucks, but it’s kind of a compromise between the peasants and landowners. In ancient Rome, there’s no compromise. The slave owners work their slaves to death.
But what’s Hungary to me now? The Pannonian Plain. The Carpathians—the mountains of Vlad Dracul as yet unborn, still lurking in the genes of nearby Romania’s nobility. Rivers winding through golden grain fields interspersed with green trees. A Romantic landscape painting everywhere you look. Plains thundering with horsemen who wear single feathers sticking straight up from the fronts of their gleaming steel helmets as they loose arrows in every direction—particularly behind them as they gallop away from you, luring you into a false retreat. A few old Roman fortresses built in the—
“Gontran,” István said.
Gontran blinked. “Yeah. Sorry. We should check it out.” He nodded to the tower, which was just barely visible over the green grass stalks glimmering in the breeze as the late afternoon’s colors deepened to golden-red. “See what we can find. I’m starving.”
István nodded. “Me too.”
They did their best to sneak through the fields to the tower, but it was impossible to do this without being seen. Monselice rose above plains which stretched for many miles in every direction, interrupted only by the occasional forest, stream, or field. As Gontran and István drew closer, they encountered more signs of cultivation: forests had been cleared to make way for farmland interspersed with paths and ditches. Yet no one was around.
In the distance, deep sonorous bells were ringing from the little church that lay in the town beneath the tower.
“I think it is Sunday,” István said.
“Don’t church bells ring all the time?” Gontran said.
“Of course. But nobody here. It is the Lord’s day. Day of rest. But Moneslice is different since last time I am here. There is more farmland. More houses. More people.”
“Italians, they breed like rabbits.”
As Gontran and István crept closer, they heard music—fifes, drums, lutes, singing. Church was over—if the villagers had even gone to church—and now groups of people were heading into the countryside to picnic. Thankfully, they were headed in the opposite direction from Gontran and István.
It was dark and quiet by the time they reached the village that lay beneath the tower on the mountain. The huts here were walled with mud and thatched with straw, and all were huddled so close to the cliffs that you could run up along a path into the tower’s walls in a few minutes. Only a few houses of wood or stone were present in the town center, near a small church.
Gontran and István stopped just outside the town, ducking behind an oak. The peasant huts were barely visible in the darkness, and there were no torches or candles. Everyone seemed to be asleep.
When Gontran stood to see if he could find anything in the village, István pulled him back. “Dogs,” he mouthed, glancing at his wounded ankle.
Gontran shoved István off, then whispered: “If I don’t get some food, I’m going to die.”
“Peasants dangerous, too. They don’t like the soldiers. They pull off your skin.”
“We aren’t soldiers.”
“How do they know?”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
István had no answer, so Gontran stood and entered the village.