《Byzantine Wars 3: The Faraway》


 1. The Raid

    They were hunting him. The fire towers along the coast were flashing, each flame flickering like a star. Talking about him. Chatting.


    Scramble the fleet, every light said. Alert the legions. The criminals are here. They must not escape.


    Soon all Rome would know.


    Gontran Koraki, captain of the Paralos, wiped a drop of seawater from his lip, and turned from the fire towers to his crew. They were sailing south along the Bosporos narrows that flowed between Asia and Thrace. Their mission? Reach Venice¡ªa thousand miles away, on the other side of a thousand islands, a thousand fortresses, a thousand ships, and a thousand thousand murderers¡ªto forge an alliance against Rome.


    It was a daunting task. Yet for the first time in all his days aboard this unusually fast dromon¡ªa two-master with forty oars¡ªGontran possessed a full crew of ninety-three men and women. They were here to row the oars, furl the sails, swab the deck, and pump blinding naphtha from the bronze dragon spout at the bow straight into the faces of anyone foolish enough to oppose them. Trebizond¡¯s engineers had even equipped the Paralos with a small cannon called a basilik, as well as a steel battering ram¡ªwarning the crew to use the latter only in emergencies, for the shock of two ships coupling like animals could split the ribs of both, dragging their hulls beneath the waves as the crews battled across the decks.


    A red flag¡ªthe uprising¡¯s standard¡ªwhipped aft.


    The crew was mostly Khazari: a mix of Jews, Turks, and Varangians who babbled to each other in a Euxine pidgin Gontran would never understand. He was inexperienced in commanding such a large crew, yet in the last few weeks he had gained enough XP to level up to apprentice leader (4/10).


    As for the ten amazons aboard, they were Greeks and Saracens, plus one fellow Frank¡ªClotilda, a serving girl who had escaped Roman captivity to join the Republic of Trebizond, along with her friend, a Syrian named Zaynab. An Arab named Zulaika al-Jariya was also with them. She was a runaway harem slave and survivor of many battles. Their commanding officer¡ªcalled a dekarch in Greek¡ªwas a Kurdish peasant woman named Ra¡¯isa, who was always clad in armor. Fierce and bright, she intimidated Gontran, along with everyone else.


    Aside from them, two other crew members remained. Both were¡ªlike the rest of the crew¡ªunusual to Gontran. One was the ship¡¯s pilot, a coal-powered automat?n made of bronze named Talia. She possessed the strength of a dozen men, though she was shapely as a Greek statue and just as disdainful of clothing, her sharp metal skin blinding in its luminousness, her eyes flaring blue gas jets, her voice powered by an unearthly pipe organ sequestered in her throat.


    The final crew member was Gontran¡¯s second-in-command and long-time business partner, Kambine Diaresso. He hailed from a faraway place called Tomboutou. This lay beyond the Libyan deserts in the Sahel, where the sand sprouted with green grass in the spring rains, and the great river bent its course in the shade of curving acacias as Fulani herders¡ªEarth¡¯s most beautiful people¡ªguided their cattle to pasture. Diaresso was tall and muscular, dressed in white robes which shone in the sun and fluttered in the spring winds. Turning his geometric features to Gontran, Diaresso¡¯s golden scimitar belted at his side glittered and clanged against his long legs.


    ¡°I told you we ought to have braved the straits by night,¡± Diaresso growled. ¡°Now all the uncircumcised dogs in R?m will be baying for our blood.¡±


    ¡°I was getting bored anyway,¡± Gontran said. ¡°I¡¯m in the mood for a race.¡±


    ¡°If a race is what you desire, they shall exhaust us in relays. They shall blockade the Dardanelles with a hundred ships¡ª¡±


    ¡°Look, I¡¯ve told you a thousand times: don¡¯t borrow trouble. You¡¯re in charge of the fire crew, so get to work. Keep us alive, Diaresso.¡±


    ¡°By my beard, it shall take a miracle.¡±


    Glaring at Gontran, Diaresso stalked across the deck, shouting orders in Arabic and Greek at a handful of young Khazari idlers who were hiding behind the foremast to play a quick game of dice. Bowing to Diaresso and exclaiming ¡°¨¹zg¨¹n¨¹m, effendi!,¡± they snatched their spotted wooden cubes and scrambled to toss roped buckets overboard, then drew them back again brimming with seawater. These buckets were left all over the deck in order to douse any possible conflagrations.


    The fire arrows were coming. Gontran shuddered at the memory of those meteors whistling toward him in the storm-tossed darkness, slamming into the masts and wreathing them in flames.


    Next, he approached Dekarch Ra¡¯isa. Not only clad in shining mail, she was also veiled in a jade hijab, and waiting for him, her hands clasped behind her back.


    ¡°Artillery crew is ready, katapan.¡± She bowed at his approach. ¡°Basilik is loaded, and naphtha spout, too.¡±


    Keep your shirt on, Gontran wanted to say. He found Ra¡¯isa humorless and uptight, but dependable, to the point where he had trouble recalling the last time he had needed to give her an order. She anticipated his commands. A self-educated peasant warrior and a survivor of the Trebizond sieges, she was rumored to have experienced unspeakable injustices before joining the uprising. Gontran struggled to treat her professionally¡ªto do otherwise endangered the mission¡ªas she was so beautiful it sometimes seemed like the sky, the clouds, the waves in the sea, the rocks and grass and trees and ruins on the land, the floorboards in the deck¡ªall sighed with longing to be with her. It did not help, either, that this Saracen maiden walked with a straight back, spoke with confidence and fearlessness, and had proven that she would knock any man who disrespected her to the ground¡ªonce even smashing a hapless Varangian deckhand with the absurd name of Igor Bryachislavich straight through the floorboards and down into the hold beneath.


    Ra¡¯isa was also Zhayedan. She could run upon walls, leap across rooftops, and slice speeding arrows in half with her ringing blade.


    In other words, she¡¯s high-maintenance.


    The Paralos had now reached the Towers of Oblivion. These were two brick prison-fortresses constructed on either side of the Bosporos almost within sight of Konstantinopolis. The thick crenellated towers touched the shore at the narrowest point of the straits, and were meant to strangle this neck of sea flowing from the Euxine to the Aegean and beyond. Already the soldiers inside the towers were blasting trumpets which warned the Paralos to halt for inspection. The Paralos, of course, ignored these warnings, and sliced the blue waves as the wind surged in the sails and the crew oared to the beating drum¡ªplayed by Joseph ben Solomon, a boy who, like Ra¡¯isa, had also survived the Trebizond sieges. Eager for adventure, he had begged to join the expedition, but the workers¡¯ council had forbidden it, saying he was too young. And he was. Stowing away among the sacks of bread and cheese and the barrels of wine and olive oil and potable water belowdecks, he had revealed himself only when it was too late to turn back. Gontran was furious that the boy was here, and terrified for his safety, but the crew made the best of it, and Joseph had become their unofficial mascot. As he pounded the drum, Gontran rubbed the boy¡¯s orange hair.


    ¡°When the fighting starts,¡± Gontran told Joseph, ¡°go belowdecks and stay there.¡±


    ¡°But you need someone to keep time for the rowers, sir.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll find someone else. We were taking turns drumming before¡ª¡±


    ¡°But katapan,¡± Joseph began.


    Gontran raised his finger. ¡°No arguments. And if we don¡¯t make it, if we get captured, either surrender to the Romans or run for your life. Don¡¯t get yourself killed. Live to fight another day.¡±


    Joseph rolled his eyes. ¡°Aye, sir,¡± he said sarcastically.


    Gontran looked to the Towers of Oblivion, thinking the boy liked sailing out here too much. It was going to get him killed. Even if he surrendered, the Romans would enslave him, and do many other unspeakable things besides. Joseph knew. Like so many in the uprising, he was a survivor, he had been through all of this before. Still, he didn¡¯t belong here. He should have been studying in school, not beating a drum in a war zone. Yet taking care of him had increased Gontran¡¯s parenting skill to Initiate (1/10).


    As he watched the Towers of Oblivion, two Roman galleys left their piers to pursue the Paralos.


    ¡°Steady as she goes,¡± Gontran told Talia.


    ¡°There is no need to say as such,¡± her voice box hummed. ¡°For I am fully aware of our primary mission objectives.¡±


    ¡°Touchy for a robot,¡± Gontran said.


    No one reacted to this comment. This was because no one here knew the word robot, which originated in a place called ¡°the old world.¡± Gontran and his friends Alexios and Herakleia came from this ¡°old world,¡± though it actually lay a thousand years in the future on the planet¡¯s far side. While rotting in a classroom in that place, they had played a magical board game which had transported them here last summer, giving them new bodies and identities. Herakleia had also learned, during Trebizond¡¯s second siege, that the Roman general Narses the Town Destroyer¡ªthe butcher of Anatolia, the mass murderer, war criminal, rapist, and slave driver¡ªhailed from the same place. This monster was now rumored to be emperor of Rome thanks to a recent coup d¡¯¨¦tat. He had been a jock and a lobsterman¡¯s son back in the old world.


    This is what happens when you take someone like that and put them in charge of an army, Gontran thought. You get a slave empire.


    As the crew oared away from its two pursuers, Dekarch Ra¡¯isa ordered her amazon artillery crew to position the ship¡¯s basilik at the stern. They acknowledged her command. The artillery crew of four had been training back in Trebizond for months. They stuffed black powder into the metal tube, loaded the ball, and took aim beneath the red flag which was whipping in the wind.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°Prepare to fire!¡± Ra¡¯isa shouted.


    Gontran plugged his ears. Everyone turned away.


    ¡°Fire!¡±


    One amazon touched a burning fuse to the firing hole. The basilik exploded and lunged back on its creaking wooden wheels as the crew leaped out of the way from the acrid smoke laced with sparks. With his eyes Gontran followed the black ball as it swooped across the sea and burst into the closest Roman ship, splintering its hull, setting it aflame, and letting the gushing saltwater inside its hold. Before long, the ship was sinking into bubbling foam, and its crew was leaping into the waves.


    Everyone aboard the Paralos cheered.


    ¡°Nice shot!¡± Gontran shouted.


    Ra¡¯isa and her amazons were too busy taking aim at the second ship, which was now turning away to retreat, the enemy captain waving his arms and yelling commands. But turning his ship to the side like this made his vessel a wide target, one even easier to strike. Although the basilik was hot enough to melt the skin from your bones, Dekarch Ra¡¯isa¡¯s artillery crew loaded and fired again within sixty seconds. Dry smoke puffed from the basilik. Gontran tasted it on his lips as the blast rang in his ears and shook his bones, and a pillar of fire leaped into the sky from the enemy ship¡¯s deck, blackening the sails. The Roman crew members clasped their hands as if in prayer and dove into the sea. Their ship went down fast.


    Another cheer rose from the Paralos crew. ¡°Amazons,¡± they chanted. ¡°Amazons!¡±


    ¡°Amazing,¡± Gontran said to Ra¡¯isa. ¡°Good work, dekarch.¡±


    She bowed. ¡°Thank you, katapan, but we work hard for this day. And without uprising, we are on family farms, our husbands or parents are beating us, or we are dying in childbirth.¡±


    ¡°Really makes you wonder.¡± Gontran wanted to change the subject, since he disliked politics. He eyed the countryside, noticing the ruined state of the buildings dotting the coast, the broken white marble temples to Apollo, the fortifications that Xerxes might have built.


    ¡°You know,¡± he added. ¡°One ship with a basilik can do a lot of damage when there aren¡¯t any other basiliks to stop it.¡±


    ¡°That is not mission, katapan.¡± Ra¡¯isa¡¯s excited tone had grown more stern. ¡°Workers¡¯ council order us to¡ª¡±


    ¡°You aren¡¯t in the mood for a little raid?¡± Gontran said. ¡°Romans are always messing with people in other countries. Maybe it¡¯s time people from other countries started messing with Rome, right in their capital? What do you think?¡±


    ¡°Then mission is at risk. Even if we destroy some buildings, we gain only risk. We cannot destroy Rome alone. ¡®Think, act, speak only to advance the uprising.¡¯ Plus, we only have thirty-five shots.¡±


    Gontran laughed. ¡°Only thirty-five shots. Who knows? The way you and your amazons shoot, you might be able to take off Narses¡¯s head.¡±


    ¡°Some other rapist will replace him,¡± Ra¡¯isa said.


    Diaresso approached them and said something in Arabic to Ra¡¯isa. She didn¡¯t speak Arabic, yet knew many quotations from the Koran, and even answered Diaresso with a quote of her own, which made him nod and smile knowingly. It was unusual to see him in a good mood these days. Back in Trebizond, he had broken up with his old flame, the beautiful Queen Tamar, who had barely survived the Latin occupation. Now it seemed that little tied Diaresso to the uprising save his business partnership with Gontran.


    It also bothered Gontran to see his crew speaking foreign languages¡ªit always made him suspect they were plotting against him¡ªbut he couldn¡¯t force them to speak Greek. Only a handful knew it. And besides, the uprising insisted on democratizing everything, even the military, which meant that Gontran served at his crew¡¯s pleasure. If he displeased them, they would replace him.


    A few enemy scouts rode galloping horses along either coastline, doing their best to keep up with the Paralos. No more vessels pursued the dromon, but the sea was growing crowded with Varangian longships, Arab dhows, Italian galleys, Greek barges, and even the occasional Hanseatic cog. Straight ahead, just above the blue waves, rose the striped walls of Konstantinopolis, the domes and towers swelling from the Earth. Even the statue of Konstantinos Magnos was visible from this distance. He bestrode a marble pillar that towered above all the jumbled rooftops of red and orange tile, clutching Neptune¡¯s golden staff in one hand, his head crowned with the sun¡¯s rays.


    Gontran shook his head at the sight. He hadn¡¯t been here in almost a year. Since then, the dickheads that ran Rome had tried to kill him more times than he could count.


    ¡°Still,¡± Gontran said to Ra¡¯isa. ¡°Still feel like we should give them a volley or two.¡±


    Her expression asked if he was serious.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be passing the Great Palace,¡± Gontran said. ¡°It¡¯s right on the coast. It¡¯s huge. You can¡¯t miss it.¡±


    She watched him for a moment. ¡°One shot. As we move.¡±


    ¡°Infinitely better than nothing.¡±


    He instructed Talia to pilot the ship toward the palace precinct, which¡ªas they neared the Marmara Sea¡ªappeared to occupy most of the City, taking the form of grass lawns, forests of cypress and pine, and white marble churches, apartments, fountains, and offices beyond counting. The gardens were still gray in the spring, but they would be glorious in the summer. That was when the City smelled like nectar, though you could always catch the deep musty scent of incense pouring out of the churches and monasteries, rattling as ever with their eerie wooden semantrons, a mesmerizing sound Gontran never got used to. Only the Italian churches in Galata tolled bronze bells.


    ¡°Keep us out of bowshot,¡± Gontran said to Talia. ¡°We¡¯ll be alright.¡±


    Talia nodded. ¡°I acknowledge your command.¡±


    ¡°You tempt fate, giaour,¡± Diaresso whispered to Gontran. ¡°What need have we for such dangerous hijinks as these? What is it that you seek to prove?¡±


    ¡°Girls just want to have fun,¡± Gontran sang. ¡°Oh yeah, girls just want to have¡­fun!¡±


    Diaresso shook his head as if to say that Gontran was so disappointing, it went beyond words.


    Ra¡¯isa¡¯s artillery crew, meanwhile, had wheeled the basilik forward, propping it¡ªawkwardly¡ªatop the naphtha spout. With the cool wind billowing everyone¡¯s clothes, the artillery crew loaded the basilik and took aim as Talia worked the steering oars, swinging the ship toward the towering masses of domes.


    Where¡¯s the emperor hiding? Which window in the palace is it?


    It was so exciting, Gontran almost wanted to whip out the Seran pistol-sword belted at his side and fire it into all that architecture, the mountains of pillars and arches, though he knew it was pointless. The wind was so strong, the bullet was bound to plop into the sea, there to be gulped down by some wandering mullet, and found in its stomach ten years later by an astounded fisherman.


    But the Paralos was so close! Even the great church of Hagia Sophia was in sight, seeming to bask in the clouds above the sea walls, its blue dome topped with an enormous gilded cross, its white walls glimmering in the sunlight reflected from the waves.


    Guards on the thick massive sea walls aimed their bows between the battlements and loosed arrows. These splashed the sea.


    Gontran pouted. ¡°Oh, too bad! Try again!¡±


    Dekarch Ra¡¯isa aimed the basilik herself this time, and (while wearing mitts to protect her hands from the scalding metal) lifted it as high as it would go. It looked like she was aiming at the cross that topped Hagia Sophia. Before Gontran could ask her to avoid committing a war crime¡ªChristians were also aboard the Paralos¡ªshe fired, and the ball hurtled above the City, pulling behind it a tail of smoke and fire, an ominous comet zooming into the distance out of sight. He worried that it would land in a school or a house, that it would decapitate a child, but he told himself that, in all likelihood, the ball had buried itself in a field somewhere beyond the walls. A farmer would stop his plough horse, stare at the crater, cross himself, and mutter a Hail Mary to the sky.


    ¡°Is that all you¡¯ve got?¡± Gontran said to Konstantinopolis. ¡°A couple of ships, and a few arrows?¡±


    Talia turned the Paralos southward again, and they sailed away from Konstantinopolis and into the Marmara, the cities of Chrysopolis and Chalkedon falling behind them on their left, the Italian churches in Galata back to their right ringing their warning bells. All the hundreds of merchant vessels which crowded the sea were sailing or rowing away from them now. The Greeks deployed no more warships to stop the Paralos.


    Maybe the emperor really does have no clothes. Maybe this whole thing will be easier than I expected.


    As the artillery crew secured the basilik, and as the rowers pulled the oars from the waves and stored them under their benches¡ªstretching their muscles, groaning, laughing¡ªRa¡¯isa approached Gontran.


    ¡°Now they know we are here,¡± she said. ¡°Everyone in Konstantinopolis will hear basilik. They will taste our fear.¡±


    ¡°See?¡± Gontran said. ¡°One shot didn¡¯t hurt anyone. If anything, it felt pretty good!¡± He turned to Diaresso, who had crossed his long muscular arms. ¡°I told you it would work.¡±


    ¡°The cat possesses but nine lives,¡± Diaresso said.


    ¡°We showed them,¡± Joseph said. He had stopped drumming. ¡°We took a little revenge for what they did to my family.¡±


    Gontran drew in a deep breath. It was shocking that one so young had already experienced such terrible things. Narses himself had enslaved the boy back in Nikaia, turned him into a child soldier, and murdered his family. Gontran hugged Joseph close.


    ¡°We should have dropped you off at a fishing village or something,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Somewhere sympathetic to the uprising. You could have found your way back to Trebizond.¡±


    ¡°But I want to stay with you,¡± Joseph said.


    Am I going soft for this kid? Gontran wondered as he looked at Joseph¡¯s orange hair and his warm eyes.


    ¡°We got lucky,¡± Gontran said. For a moment, he was horrified that he had attacked the capital of the Roman Empire with a child aboard his ship.


    We should have dropped him off. But there¡¯s nowhere to put him! Everywhere¡¯s too dangerous!


    ¡°You keep trying to get rid of me,¡± Joseph said. ¡°But I¡¯m here to stay.¡±


    What happened next occurred almost too quickly for Gontran to understand. For an instant, he heard a deep swooping sound above him, and when he looked up, a hole had been torn in the foresail. Then came a roaring crack from behind. He turned to look, and a pillar of gray smoke was rising above the City¡¯s sea walls. This was followed by a nearby red flash, then another smoke pillar.


    And another.


    And another.


    ¡°Get down!¡± Gontran dove to the deck with Joseph. ¡°Everybody down!¡±


    I¡¯ll keep him safe, he thought, covering Joseph with his own body.


    As the City¡¯s walls lit up with flames¡ªbelching smoke, vomiting heat and light¡ªiron balls darted around the Paralos, swooping, whistling, screaming. To port, starboard, fore, and aft, blue columns of foaming water surged into the air higher than the two masts, which shook as the projectiles hurtled around them.


    With the volley over, the rowers rushed back to work¡ªGontran and Diaresso joined them¡ªbut an iron ball smashed through their oars, sending splinters into their eyes. They shut them, cursing in different languages, and Joseph beat his drums faster as the rowers dropped their wrecked oars into the sea and pulled up their only spares from under their benches.


    ¡°Get belowdecks!¡± Gontran yelled at Joseph. ¡°This is no place for a kid!¡±


    ¡°The rowers will never keep time without me!¡± Joseph yelled back.


    Gontran turned around and stood up to climb off his rowing bench. He was about to carry Joseph belowdecks, but then the drumming stopped. He felt something wet on his back. Gontran turned, and saw Joseph¡¯s little body lying headless on the deck, red blood gushing from his neck stump.


    Gontran felt sick. The groan of anguish he released from his throat sounded like it had come from an animal rather than a person. But now the sailors were rowing for their lives, and he needed to help them. Though he was afraid to look back, when he did, he saw that several enemy ships were leaving the huge harbors on the City¡¯s southern flank, their sails taut with wind, their banks of oars rising high into the air and plunging back down into the sea. As his eyes narrowed, he discerned basiliks at their bowsprits, their artillery crews loading them and aiming at the Paralos.

 2. Submit To Allah

    Evening. Sunset reddened the marble sea, gracing the waves with light. The Paralos¡¯s crew had been rowing their long heavy oars since mid afternoon, each man resting only a few minutes per hour by beating the drum to keep time for everyone else. All of them were sad about Joseph, whom Ra¡¯isa had wrapped in a white burial shroud. Sometimes the crew members lacked even the strength to reach the drum, and, stumbling aft, they would fall to the deck and sprawl there, groaning, clutching their arms, pleading for help from the Virgin, from Allah, from Adonai, from Perun. Then the air would split with a basilik roaring from one of the pursuing Greek ships, a deep splash would surge up from the sea close enough to drench the sails, the rowers would row harder, and the man on the deck would crawl to the drum and pound it.


    Bum, bum, bum.


    Gontran had never felt so weary. Unable to speak, desperate with sadness for the loss of Joseph, barely able to think, he had told himself many times that it was impossible to go on. Then the Greeks would fire, and a second, third, fourth, or fifth wind would rush within him.


    Joseph would not have wanted us to stop. He would have told us to keep fighting.


    Mercifully, the wind continued to blow southward, but this also meant that the Greek ships continued to pursue.


    No torches lit the Paralos¡¯s deck. Soon it would be too dark to see. Then, perhaps, they could rest. But the Greek crews knew this, too, and so the torches on their decks blazed with a demonic intensity, since they could never return home without their quarry¡ªfor their incompetence the emperor himself would whip the flesh from their bones. To inaugurate his reign, he had impaled thousands of people on the seashore near Konstantinopolis as a warning to all who would oppose him, their corpses rotting on the wooden stakes, the flesh picked clean by carrion feeders. Some stakes were even surrounded by piles of bleached bones that could be seen from miles away.


    Thanks, but no thanks.


    Pure sweet blackness ascended from the east, chasing the last tinges of sunlight into the west. Stars and planets coalesced from the night while the white crescent moon rose from the horizon, almost like it was a prop being hoisted in a stageplay. Now the Paralos was adrift. The crew sprawled on their oars like corpses¡ªonly Talia¡¯s blue eyes shining like two liquid flames¡ªbut the Greeks were still converging on them, their drums pounding like heartbeats, growing louder, the enemy captains calling out to each other in the night, coordinating.


    How can we fight them? Gontran thought. I can¡¯t lift my arms!


    Indeed, he could hardly even hear as Dekarch Ra¡¯isa whispered for her amazons to prepare to repel boarders. Armed with spears, swords, and shields, they hid below the wales. The ship¡¯s basilik was propped aft again, and aimed down. They would only fire when the enemy ships were too close to miss, targeting the lowest points of their hulls.


    Ra¡¯isa withdrew Gontran¡¯s Seran pistol-sword from its sheathe and pulled his powder and ammunition bags from his pockets, though she left his hundred and twenty nomismas. Gontran loved his pistol-sword¡ªit had saved his life many times¡ªbut he was too weary to even look at Ra¡¯isa, let alone ask if she knew how to use it. Diaresso, by his side, seemed to have passed out, for he was murmuring to himself about Queen Tamar and the grapes of paradise.


    One moment Gontran was ready to surrender to his fate. The next, the basilik was exploding, and Greeks were screaming ¡°for the cross!¡± A vast hulking mass crashed into the Paralos, which rocked so far to the side that Gontran gripped his oar out of terror that he would plunge into the sea. Boots slammed onto the deck as metal clanged and men fell into the waves, yelling and gurgling. Gontran¡¯s pistol-sword made a crack sound that was loud enough to startle him, and the amazons screamed: ¡°for the uprising!¡±


    More ships slammed into them, soon too many to count. It was a battlefield in the middle of the sea, and the ground beneath the soldiers¡¯ boots and sandals was wood rather than earth or stone. Steel clashed, men grunted and screamed in the dark. Gontran wanted to avenge Joseph, but when he got up to fight, he fell to the deck and was unable to rise again. The game voice told him his stamina was down to single digits, and affecting his health, which had decreased to 90/100.


    Though the amazons were great warriors, and even darted about in blurs, ten weary battle maidens could never hold off hundreds of furious marines. The Greeks, however, were unprepared for an automat?n. Gontran sensed somehow, as dreams and reality mixed, that Talia was whirling across the decks, dousing the torches, snatching the enemy¡¯s swords with her metal hands and stabbing their eyes. For most marines, the last thing they ever saw were two blue flames lunging toward them in the dark.


    When Gontran woke, the warm sun was overhead. He was surprised¡ªas ever¡ªto be alive. Lying under his bench, his body ached so that when he turned his head to look around, it was all he could do to keep from shrieking in agony. Every muscle was strained, every bone ready to snap. Some of his stamina was restored, but he had lost a lot of health. His pistol-sword was in his hand; Ra¡¯isa must have given it back.


    Memory of yesterday¡¯s battle returned. Gontran recalled Joseph¡¯s fate, and he slumped with sadness.


    Talia stood nearby like a statue, every inch of her bronze skin drenched in blood save her flaming blue eyes. Drip, drip, drip, the blood pooled beneath her fingertips. Greek ships had rammed the Paralos from every side, and their decks were piled with red corpses. Talia had slaughtered them all.


    ¡°Do you still believe,¡± Diaresso whispered in Gontran¡¯s ear, ¡°that it is a good idea, a safe idea and a worthwhile one, to fire our unholy basilik upon that great monster of a city?¡±


    Gontran was too downcast to answer.


    Talia turned her head, then her body, to face them. ¡°I have dispatched the slave masters.¡±


    ¡°Mashallah,¡± Diaresso said. ¡°For I am glad that you fight by our side, Artifice of the Artificer, and not that of the enemy.¡±


    ¡°Only so long as you fight for universal liberation,¡± she said with her pipe organ voice. ¡°Turn against that ideal, and I shall turn against you.¡±


    ¡°As you have so often said.¡± Diaresso turned to Gontran, and whispered: ¡°She was the miracle I spoke of¡ªa miracle of golden handiwork. Without her, we would all be dead, or worse.¡±


    ¡°Not everyone made it,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Yes, the boy was martyred.¡± Diaresso eyed Joseph¡¯s body, still wrapped in a white shroud by the wale. ¡°Yet only fools think that war is like unto a banquet in the countryside. Even when fought for a just cause, as our war is, much needless suffering is incurred. I shall pray for Joseph¡ªfor all the days that remain to me.¡±


    As the Paralos¡¯s crew revived, they took turns thanking the automat?n. Ra¡¯isa offered to wash the blood from Talia¡¯s metal skin¡ªit being inappropriate for the men aboard to do so, though technically Talia¡¯s gender was an open question. She accepted Ra¡¯isa¡¯s offer.


    ¡°Only, with the water, proceed sparingly,¡± Talia added. ¡°Too much will extinguish both my inner and outer lights.¡±


    ¡°Bad for us, then,¡± Ra¡¯isa said.


    Gontran, meanwhile, got to work counting the dead. Of their original crew of ninety-three, they had lost Joseph, plus four sailors and one amazon. This left eighty-seven. Every survivor save Talia was wounded, three grievously so. The ship¡¯s doctor, Abu Ubayd¡ªa man with a black turban and a forked beard who had trained in Isfahan¡ªwas forced to amputate. One by one, rags were stuffed in the mouths of these three unfortunates. One was Varangian, named Dmitri Anatolyevich, another was a Turk named Ibn Ismail, while the third was a Trapezuntine named Athanasios. Crowds of men held them down, and Doctor Abu Ubayd sawed off their wounded limbs, tossing them into the sea¡ªwhere they splashed and floated, a free meal for sharks¡ªhis arms red with blood as his patients shrieked like madmen.


    Two men with one leg each, Gontran thought. One man with a single arm.


    Next, Gontran examined the ship¡¯s damage with Diaresso, assigning the rest of the crew to search the enemy vessels for useful supplies. The Paralos needed to move quickly. Already merchant ships from how many different nations were sailing past, all of them keeping their distance from this mid-oceanic battlefield of tangled ropes and interlocked spars. Word of the Greeks¡¯ defeat would soon reach Konstantinopolis.


    On the deck, in the hold, even dangling over the side with ropes tied to their waists, Gontran and Diaresso hammered with wooden mallets every plank the ship was made of. All held firm. Not a nail was loose.


    ¡°The second miracle of the day,¡± Gontran said to Diaresso, after both were convinced of the Paralos¡¯s seaworthiness.


    ¡°There shall not be another,¡± Diaresso said. ¡°Though you may thank Allah if you wish, for He is all-wise, all-merciful.¡±


    Gontran held his hands palm-up to the sky, closed his eyes, and bowed his head. ¡°Thank you, Allah.¡± He opened one eye and looked at Diaresso. "How do you say ''thank god'' in Arabic? Is it ''alhamdullilah?''"


    ¡°Do not tempt Him with your irreverence.¡±


    Gontran opened both eyes and lowered his hands. ¡°I was serious!¡±


    ¡°If you were truly serious, you would recite the Shahada, submit to Allah, and join the community of the faithful.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s just no winning with you.¡±


    ¡°Truly.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Diaresso, but if I convert to Islam, will you at least be a little nicer to me?¡±


    ¡°To merely do one''s duty merits no reward. To declare that there is only one God, and He is God¡ªthat is its own sweetness, its own reward.¡±


    Next, the question was whether to bring any of the abandoned Greek vessels with the Paralos to Venice. Even one more ship would make a difference, but the problem was the lack of manpower. To take one Greek vessel and divide the Paralos crew meant that the next time there was a battle, both ships would be operating at only half strength.


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    And so the Paralos¡¯s crew burned the enemy ships. Having taken spare arms and armor, a great deal of money, many iron balls and much powder, they pushed the Paralos away with their oars. Then it was Ra¡¯isa, running about the enemy decks with a torch, who set them aflame. Once she had finished, she dove into the sea, swam to the Paralos, and was pulled onto the deck with a rope around her waist, like a mermaid drenched in ocean. The reflections of the liquid flames seemed to oil the sea, flashing in the waves and troughs, acting as a funeral pyre for the Greek dead. This they would have hated, since it would prevent their bodily resurrection on Judgement Day.


    The final task before departure was the sea burial of the Paralos¡¯s dead. For those who had perished, some were popular, others less so, but the entire crew was distraught over Joseph''s death. Only Talia¡¯s eyes were dry as different crew members, acting as priests for their respective faiths, bid the fallen farewell. Joseph¡¯s Jewish comrades had a minyan and said a kaddish, while Diaresso begged God to forgive the deceased Muslims, doing his best to face Mecca. The remainder of the dead sailors were Christians, including Clotilda, the Frankish amazon. One of the deceased sailors was a devotee of Perun, whose body was lowered onto a plank, which was then set aflame. The others were dumped into the ocean. Joseph¡¯s little body was the last that fell into the sea.


    Gontran cried. He was shocked by how emotional he was, and in his embarrassment wanted to hide himself from his crew. But where could he go on a ship like this?


    I always liked Joseph¡­I can¡¯t believe he¡¯s gone. If I hadn¡¯t seen his body, I wouldn¡¯t have believed it. My life was an adventure until someone close to me got killed.


    A southward wind kicked up. Soon they were on their way, the Greek armada burning behind them, the flames fluttering against the sky like curtains of searing light. Gontran threw himself into his work to avoid thinking of Joseph. Everyone else did the same, laboring without conversation or laughter, even focusing on unimportant tasks. Gontran gave no orders that day; the ship ran itself. In the evening, when all the crew save Talia was sleeping in blankets or hammocks, he cried again for Joseph.


    Any of us can die like that. None of us is safe. At least it was quick. He probably didn¡¯t even know what happened. ¡®Didn¡¯t even know what hit him¡¯¡ªstupid saying. Poor Joseph. I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t keep you safe. The uprisers, these fucking nuts, all they ever say is that when you commit yourself to the uprising, you¡¯re already dead. You¡¯re already a marked man. And that, ironically, the only way you live forever is by giving your life to the uprising. What did Herakleia say? ¡°To make excuses for the status quo is a living death. By dying for the uprising, we live in glory forever.¡± Fucking cultists. I can¡¯t tell myself that for Joseph. He¡¯s gone. That¡¯s it. And his death was meaningless. He should have lived a long life, should have had a spouse and kids if he¡¯d wanted. He escaped the carnage in Nikaia, and even survived being turned into a child soldier and marched across Anatolia like a slave. Then he survived two sieges¡ªat least two battles, probably more. Only to have his head taken off by a basilik. It makes no sense. There¡¯s no purpose to it, none at all. If the uprising fails, he''ll have died for nothing.


    In Gontran¡¯s half-dreams, a comet streaked through the night, sparkling in the void.


    He''ll flash like that forever.


    The Paralos exited the Marmara and plunged into the Straits of the Dardanelles, this being the narrow passage to the Aegean. ¡°If the Bosporos is the Marmara¡¯s throat,¡± a sailor said, ¡°then the Dardanelles is the ass.¡±


    Here Leander swam the sea for love of the priestess Hero, drowning on the way; here for ten years the Greeks besieged the ringing plains of windy Troy. Ruins were scattered everywhere on the two coastlines, the broken marble shining white against the earthen fields like the bleached knucklebones a barbarian shamaness tosses to consult the fates. These days the Dardanians were mostly farmers, fishermen, and merchants who counted on the mountains to shield them from the Turks to the east and west. Rome had little presence here save its signal towers, always flickering.


    The Paralos passed several cities. Among them was the small run-down port of Abydos, where Gontran and Diaresso had first met Alexios and his teacher, the wild old wizard Dionysios.


    ¡°Thus the deep misfortune of my fate.¡± Diaresso slumped on the wale before the passing quays and storehouses, themselves slumping toward the sea.


    Gontran was afraid to speak, and almost wanted to hide belowdecks. In Abydos lurked Demetrios Male?nos, the unsavory doux who had lent him and Diaresso hundreds of nomismas¡ªGontran wanted to forget the specific amount¡ªto finance a trading expedition to the Seres. That project, like many others, had come to nothing. Akinji raiders had attacked Gontran and Diaresso while they were departing the Greek Empire. Dropping their sacks of coin¡ªalong with almost everything they carried save their weapons, clothes, and skins¡ªthey had kicked their spurs deep into their horses, whose sides were soaked with blood as their galloping legs thundered against the blurring land, gasping as foam bubbled around their lips, their black eyes wide with fright, their muscles rippling and gleaming in the alternating light and darkness of day and night. Diaresso and Gontran returned to Abydos, there to beg Male?nos for one more chance, since the crime lord had agents everywhere, even as far as the burning city of Bakuya in Shirvan, the orderly Seran capital of Dongjing, the Cholla capital of Tanjore.


    In Abydos, Gontran and Diaresso had run into Alexios and Dionysios in a tavern before their planned meeting at Male?nos¡¯s palace. Even now, Gontran was tired of always having to watch his back. He felt tempted to abandon the uprising and abase himself before Male?nos, paying all the money he possessed¡ªa hundred and twenty nomismas, sequestered at all times in his pants pockets¡ªto show that he meant business.


    And that I don¡¯t deserve to be turned into a statue, Gontran thought.


    This was a reference to Male?nos¡¯s favorite way to punish failure¡ªencasing people in Roman cement. He had an entire garden of these grotesque statues outside his palace.


    Abydos lay on the left side of the Dardanelles. On the right was Sestos, an old town with a silted up harbor surrounding a fortress whose cobblestone highway led north into Thrace, the Bulgar Khanate, the Kingdom of Diokleia, and lands beyond. With enough time, money, and luck, those roads could even bring you to Metz, Gontran¡¯s home in northern France, where his peasant family still labored beneath the cracking whip of Lord Chlotar. Gontran had sworn that he would return one day to free them, but this goal¡ªand every other¡ª he had set aside for the uprising.


    Sometimes I can¡¯t even justify these actions to myself, he thought.


    Past the Dardanelles rose the isle of Tenedos. Here the warrior Philoctetes was abandoned for ten years during the Trojan War for a poison snake wound which refused to heal, instead festering and stinking enough to drive his Greek comrades away, coughing, covering their noses, waving their hands, exclaiming that Troy was bad, but this was something else. Gontran wanted to stop there; these days the isle was famous for its opium, women, and wine.


    Preferably taken together, he thought.


    Many such isles were spread before them in the Aegean. Each was known for some commodity which would fetch a handsome price the farther one hauled it. Gontran¡¯s merchant¡¯s eyes saw all these isles and their fragrant storehouses stuffed with sacks, barrels, crates, skins, and amphorae of goodly merchandise. Oddly enough, he found himself longing, too, for the annoying scribe Samonas, whose lifelong walking problems had granted him an addiction to knowledge¡ªmostly useless philosophies, though he was also a living navigational chart.


    With Samonas by my side, we''d make a lot of money.


    But the Paralos could stop nowhere. Greek, Italian, and Arab cutters prowled these seas like slavering sharks, the Etesian winds swelling their sails in warm spring months. Thus, Gontran and his crew threaded the needle with regard to the archipelago that reposed upon the gleaming waves, the ship¡¯s course plunging south between the sporadic Sporades on the right and Mytilene on the left, the former famous for its dainty horses, the latter for its poets, its exiled kings and queens, its monasteries. Just south of Mytilene lay Chios, notorious for medicinal gum that was spiced like molten lead, and weeped in tears from its trees like drops of rain from eaves of reeds. In Paris a handful of such mastika could be exchanged for a handful of gold coin.


    Standing on the Paralos¡¯s deck, watching out for pirates, Gontran ground his teeth in frustration as though chewing that medicinal mastika.


    Farther south cycled the Cyclades, a yellow spatter of paint floating on the silver sea, each isle close enough to be seen from the others, their signal towers flickering. From these the Paralos could not hide. Yet as days passed, no Aegean monks, fishermen, or merchants stopped them. Gontran eyed the harbors full of fishing boats, the rolling peaks and valleys running with sheep, the farmland scattered with farmers who were themselves scattering seeds into the rich dark furrows, the monasteries rattling with wooden semantrons, and the mountain chora towns clustered like white lambs around brick castles which were only the size of guard towers on Konstantinopolis¡¯s Land Walls.


    If only I could pick up some silk on Andros! he thought. Some marble on Naxos or Paros!


    The quarries here were titanic, and from their living rock one could carve glittering white statues whose tops would breach the clouds. To the south lay the cheese and wine of Crete, where the azan could still be heard from the old days of the emirate, and then past Crete were the slave markets of Egypt. Gontran, as a former peasant, had never traded slaves, and never would. But few merchants saw any difference between trading unlucky animals versus trading unlucky people. The only difference merchants really saw was that the latter option usually made more money.


    As for Gontran, every minute he spent here, he lost money. On the uprising''s altar he had sacrificed his possible future as lord of a knightly realm¡ªsafe behind thick walls, warmed by fires roaring beneath the flue, entertained by the songs of wandering troubadours, enriched by thousands of peasants laboring in town upon town, all of it secured by a stamped and signed vellum parchment testifying to his enfeoffment of these lands in the name of the king.


    Instead of resting, I work, Gontran thought. Instead of winning, I lose.


    Yet he had no regrets. He did not buy entirely into the uprising¡¯s ideals. But he would never live off the stolen labor of others. He had never made his peace with feudalism or slavery, as so many ostensibly good people did. Instead, he had decided that the path to women, wealth, and wine¡ªall that he desired¡ªled through the uprising.


    Following the ship¡¯s portolan map, the Paralos turned west. It darted between Andros and Chalkis along the narrow Kafireas Strait, both isles lowing with snow white heifers of the sun. Here were busy shipping lanes. Every vessel was armed not only for defense, but also to take advantage of opportunities, since everyone was either a potential pirate or victim of piracy. The most common barques were Venetian, distinguished by their striking flag: on a red background, a winged lion of gold rested its paw upon an open book. But other flags were also present. Here was the Greek chi-rho, there the rearing knight on his steed for Ancona, alternating blue and red stripes for the young and semi-independent republic of Ragusa, a blue background with a diagonal slash checkered red and white for Sicily, and crosses for Pisa and Genova. Occasional Saracen ships sported black or white flags scrawled with Arabic. All of these flags were defensive, in a way, since to attack a ship flying the Ancona flag (for example) meant attacking the whole city and armada of Ancona. Yet Venice was the only flag the entire sea feared. No one wished to incur the wrath of the Serenissima, a growing power, and therefore the most aggressive.


    But Trebizond¡¯s red flag was unknown. Sometimes passing sailors would ask, in Mediterranean pidgin¡ªa non-inflected mix of Romance, Greek, Arabic, and Touareg¡ªwho they were.


    ¡°Trebizond and Kitezh!¡± the Paralos¡¯s crew would respond.


    Kitezh the other sailors knew¡ªit was the northern power of the steppe, swallowed up long ago by Varangians and Turks.


    ¡°But Trebizond,¡± the other sailors asked, ¡°is independent?¡±


    ¡°Yes, independent!¡± the Paralos¡¯s sailors cried. ¡°We got rid of our bosses, so watch out!¡±


    Here always the captains of the passing vessels would swallow nervously, mop the sweat from their brows with a shirtsleeve, dart their eyes back and forth, and chuckle awkwardly as their crews looked at them. ¡°We¡¯re all friends, aren¡¯t we, boys?¡± the captains¡¯ actions said. ¡°Aren¡¯t we?¡±


    Yet the red flag¡¯s obscurity didn¡¯t just invite curiosity. It also invited violence. The Paralos was a fast ship, big, strong, and sturdy, which meant that single passing vessels refrained from aggression. Gontran also possessed a Seran luopan, a small wooden geomantic device scrawled with obscure symbols which always pointed south, thereby enabling safe travel per peleggio¡ªi.e., in open seas, and not along the coasts, as most safer captains preferred.


    But two weeks after the Marmara battle, the Paralos encountered something that was not safe. When they swung north toward the Adriatic and passed through the narrow Strait of Otranto, they encountered a trio of two-masted Venetian war galleys guarding this body of water. The Venetians surrounded the Paralos, blew their horns, and shouted¡ªin Venetian, not pidgin¡ªto surrender.

 3. A Pig In Filth

    Past the Ionian Isles, when the three Venetian ships appeared on the horizon¡ªeach flying the red-gold pennant of San Marco, the sails swollen with wind, the oars rising and falling like swan¡¯s wings¡ªGontran put the question to the crew.


    ¡°Fight or run?¡±


    Contrary to expectations, the crew quickly decided that, since Trebizond and Kitezh were seeking allies, it was best to pursue diplomacy with these Venetian pirates who called themselves merchants.


    ¡°Even if they arrest us?¡± Gontran asked.


    ¡°Even if they arrest us,¡± the crew said.


    ¡°Much as I hate to admit,¡± Diaresso added, ¡°there is little reason to fight. We must submit¡ªfor the better or the worse.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s probably going to be for the worse,¡± Gontran said. ¡°There¡¯s no way they¡¯ve forgotten the siege. They must have lost nearly their entire investment back in Trebizond.¡±


    For the first time since the voyage had begun, Diaresso laughed. ¡°Yes, I heard that only a handful of their vessels escaped the burning of the city. Perhaps at most one or two dozen, out of the five score which they deployed to enslave Tarabizun. What fools these Venetians are¡ªlike fish out of water, like big fish leaving their little lagoon.¡±


    ¡°Last I heard, they were making the emperor melt down all the gold tiles on the rooftops of Konstantinopolis¡¯s churches to pay for it.¡±


    ¡°Thus should be the fate of all the golden idols in that teeming hive of idolaters,¡± Diaresso said. ¡°Turn their pretty statues into plowshares that the hungry might be fed.¡±


    ¡°Does that include turning me into a plowshare, too?¡± Talia¡¯s blue eyes blazed.


    Diaresso turned to her. ¡°I would have said so earlier, Artifice of the Artificer. I would have considered you an idol, a clever contraption, not a being of mind and soul. But you have proven yourself one worthier by far than most men, if not all. Even now, I wonder¡ªcould you bring all these haughty Venetians to an early grave at sea?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re trying to make friends with them, remember?¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Diaresso said. ¡°We make friends with one enemy to bring another to annihilation. But this Artifice, she is our secret weapon, is she not? Who could stop her when she whirls about like a darwaysh of steel, but a Zhayedan?¡±


    When the Paralos was surrounded, and the Venetians yelled for the ship to stop¡ªspeaking their nasally dialect, like Italian if you pinched your nose¡ªGontran and his crew acceded to their demands. Oars were stowed, sails were reefed, and guns were hidden belowdecks. Talia lurked there in the darkness, her eyes shining like blue candle flames, her engine gently pounding in her brazen chest.


    ¡°I am Capitano Giustiniani Loredan,¡± said a man attired in black standing with arms akimbo aboard the lead Venetian ship. (Gontran understood him¡ªwith some difficulty¡ªthanks to speaking French, Greek, and Mediterranean pidgin.) ¡°Who might you be, signore, and what might be your purpose to entering the Golfo di Venezia?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re on a diplomatic mission to the Serenissima,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°To treat? On behalf of whom? I do not recognize your flag, signore.¡±


    ¡°The Republic of Trebizond,¡± Gontran said. ¡°In alliance with the¡ª¡±


    ¡°Trebisonda?¡± Loredan sputtered, looking to his men. ¡°Seize these scoundrels at once!¡±


    ¡°Hold on a minute, let me explain!¡± Gontran shouted.


    Grappling hooks clanked onto the Paralos¡¯s deck from all directions, and the three Venetian ships pulled themselves close enough for their crews to leap aboard. Gontran and everyone else stood and raised their hands above their heads. Before they knew it, their swords were torn from their scabbards and flung to the deck. Their wrists were roped behind their backs¡ªand then, soon, chained, for Venetians never left port without piles of iron manacles in the bellies of their galleys. Even the smallest one-masted pinnace was always ready to take on slaves.


    Gontran rolled his eyes. After all, you never know when you¡¯ll stumble upon a bunch of people who are just aching to be enslaved.


    ¡°In the name of the Signoria,¡± Loredan said, climbing aboard, ¡°I hereby take possession of this most piratical vessel, by the Grace of Holy God.¡±


    The entire Paralos crew looked at Gontran as if this was his fault, but Diaresso and Ra¡¯isa seemed especially furious. Gontran himself blamed Herakleia.


    Just surrender to our sworn enemies without a fight, he thought. What could go wrong?


    The mission had been an act of desperation. But the workers had voted in favor of it, as had the Paralos crew.


    In minutes, Loredan had ordered some of his crew members to take over the Paralos and sail her back to a place called Rivoalto, meaning ¡°Highstream¡±¡ªpresumably Venice. In the Venetians¡¯ investigations belowdecks, they announced that they had found reams of Seran silk, sacks of Indian spice, wood boxes of Arabic sukkar, in addition to a gorgeous, life-sized statue of a woman cast in bronze, this last more expertly crafted than anything made by the ancient Greek sculptor they called ¡°Fidia.¡±


    ¡°To touch her skin, uncle,¡± said a handsome blond youth clad in a black doublet and tights, speaking to Loredan. ¡°You would swear she was flesh and blood, like Galatea come to life. Her skin seems warm to the touch. It even seems to quiver¡­one can almost feel blood pulsing inside.¡±


    Gontran sighed with relief. Talia had shut down. She, too, had submitted to the Venetians¡ªat least for now.


    Maybe nobody told her they¡¯re slave traders, he thought, recalling her searing hatred of such people.


    ¡°Kill slave owners,¡± Talia had once said to him, the flames in her blue eyes burning. ¡°Kill landlords. Kill gangsters. Kill merchants.¡± She had paused, and the bronze segments of her eyes had focused on him. ¡°Present company excepted.¡±


    Trebizond¡¯s red flag was lowered; a standard of Saint Mark was raised in its place¡ªto cheers from the Venetian crew. Most of these returned to their ships, including Loredan. Gontran attempted once more to speak with him; in response, Loredan drew a whip from his belt and cracked it across the deck. The sound was shockingly loud, and turned every head.


    ¡°I warn you but once,¡± Loredan said. ¡°Do as you are told, and keep your mouths shut. Now you are slaves, and you belong to me¡ªall of you.¡±


    Gontran lowered his head, and glanced at Ra¡¯isa and the other amazons. As Zhayedan they could have broken free and destroyed the Venetians, but they avoided his gaze.


    Biding their time, Gontran thought. Maybe it¡¯ll be easier to retake the Paralos once most of the Venetians are aboard their own ships. We decided not to divide our crew back in the Marmara, but the Venetians are greedier and take more risks.


    ¡°This has been a most profitable venture.¡± Loredan patted the shoulder of the young, handsome, and pompous-looking Venetian who was dressed in gleaming black velvet. ¡°A bevy of slaves, not to mention a finely built dromon from the Empire of Greece¡ªall this has fallen right into our lap, by the grace of God, who, in His wisdom and glory, has seen fit to grant us this boon. You will sail them back to the Dogado, Annibale, and I will return to the Liona to escort you. The Vendramina and the Panthea will remain on patrol here in the Canale d¡¯Otranto until our return.¡±


    ¡°Molto bene, uncle.¡± Annibale bowed.


    ¡°Such slaves as these must work in le saline of Comacchio,¡± Loredan added, half to himself, as he looked at his prisoners. ¡°We shall even find work for those three cripples. But they are all too dangerous to make use of as galley slaves, for ships and seas are their environment naturale. You must be cautious, Annibale. I would not want to lose you, especially to such scum as these banditti. We are so close!¡± He squeezed his eyes shut and clutched his hands together. Then he looked at Annibale. ¡°Oh, we are so close to attaining our own estates in terra firma, I can almost taste them on my tongue. Soon I shall have titles, lands, peasants, and slaves, all of which you shall inherit¡ªthese shall all be the subjects of your future kingdom. The Loredan family shall be as firm and secure as the rock of Gibraltar, as constant as the northern star. We shall be rich, safe, comfortable. We shall want for nothing, and we shall fear less. Every problem shall be solved, and we shall be at peace forever. One day soon, all Venetians shall address you as ¡®Vostra Serenit¨¤.¡¯¡±


    ¡°I understand, uncle.¡±


    ¡°Now take heed, young one,¡± Loredan warned. ¡°For this is your first command. ¡®Spare the whip and spoil the slave.¡¯ These slaves are not your friends. They are foes only. To treat them with kindness invites their contempt. And do not forget to keep them in chains. Do not unchain them for any reason. They are insatiate as cormorants, only they pretend to be loyal and honorable¡ªuntil they see their chance. Then they will tear out your throat before you can say ¡®Ave Maria.¡¯ I have seen it happen too many times.¡±


    ¡°You need not tell me, uncle.¡±


    ¡°Fine, fine, you think this advice unnecessary, you think these words but the ramblings of an over-cautious old man. Very well, but I speak from experience, and you ought to listen, young buck.¡±


    ¡°I always have, uncle.¡±


    ¡°Once we reach the Dogado, follow my lead in the Liona. I will guide you through the porti that lie ¡®twixt the isles of the lagoon. It is much too perilous for a young pup such as yourself to navigate those dangerous shoals, currents, and sandbanks for the first time. Verily, like a second Charybdis, they will swallow you up!¡±


    Annibale bowed. He seemed to be waiting for his uncle to leave.


    ¡°Very well,¡± Loredan said. ¡°I will depart, and leave you to it. For now, you are Capitano of your first nave¡ªand a most magnificent one, at that.¡± He eyed the Paralos for a moment. ¡°We must learn from its clever construction and design, but we must also reconsecrate it, and have a priest scatter holy water upon its benighted beams, for it reeks of the stench of the Saraceni. There are too many upon this ship¡­they must be converted to the One True Faith. The Moors are not to be trusted. The hellspawn Normans in Sicily use them in their armies to defy the Holy Father in Rome, for those diavoli care not if they are excommunicated or under papal interdict, living as they already do in open sin¡ª¡±


    ¡°Uncle, we lose precious time,¡± Annibale said.


    ¡°Yes, yes, of course. Well, on that note, arrivederci, my dear boy. Farewell, Capitano Loredan, and buona fortuna. I shall miss you. You must take care of yourself.¡± Loredan kissed Annibale¡¯s cheeks, shook his hands with both of his own, hugged him tightly, watched him for a moment, then returned to the Liona.


    Jesus, his uncle really loves him, Gontran thought. He almost empathized with Loredan due to his own loss of Joseph.


    Only five men from the Venetian armada remained aboard the Paralos. One¡ªwho was dressed in filthy rags, his legs chained together, and who had hair so blond it was almost white, with crystal blue eyes, puffy cheeks, and a sharp nose¡ªpounded the drums. The other four men consisted of Annibale and his friends, who looked and dressed just like him, though they were more muscular, their hands thick and calloused. They watched the Trapezuntines and Kitezhi row the ship northward after the Liona, the slaves¡¯ chains rattling with their movements. Each of these four men kept his right hand on either his whip or his sword at all times, their bodies tense.


    Born rich, Gontran thought. Working out here so they can get even richer¡ª


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    Gontran! shouted Ra¡¯isa¡¯s voice, echoing in his mind. Can you hear me?


    He was so surprised to hear an alien voice in his consciousness (other than the game voice) that he forgot to help Diaresso¡ªsitting beside him¡ªrow the oar. For this, Diaresso scowled at him, though he was too afraid to even mutter his usual imprecations, aware of how the Venetians watched him even more closely than they did the other slaves.


    Gontran! came Ra¡¯isa¡¯s voice again.


    I can hear you, Gontran thought.


    You cannot answer, Ra¡¯isa thought. I cannot hear you. But you must hear me. It is because you do not have farr. It is alright. We will free crew tonight when the pork-eaters are tired and asleep.


    Gontran glanced at Ra¡¯isa and nodded only slightly. She was staring at him, even as they both rowed.


    Never look to me again! said her voice in his mind. Uncircumcised dogs will see!


    Sorry, Gontran thought, forgetting that she couldn¡¯t hear.


    We amazons will fight the Veneti. You must light Talia¡¯s fires. Maybe we need her help. But I think not. For they are weak, like all men.


    Gontran rolled his eyes. Ra¡¯isa was beautiful, but a little strong for his tastes.


    ¡°Cane.¡± Annibale pointed at Gontran with his whip.


    Gontran looked at him, raised his eyebrows, and pointed to himself.


    ¡°Come here, cane.¡±


    Gontran stood and lifted his hands so that another Venetian could unlock him from his bench, though his wrists were still chained together. He approached Annibale and forced himself to kneel.


    ¡°You were capitano of this barque, were you not?¡± Annibale said.


    Gontran nodded. ¡°I was.¡±


    Annibale slammed Gontran¡¯s face with the butt of his whip so hard that white light flashed everywhere in his vision. The game voice told him that he had lost five health. He cried out and clutched his cheek, his chains ringing.


    ¡°You will address all Venetian men as ¡®signore¡¯ or ''maestro'' at all times,¡± Annibale said. ¡°Capitano Cane.¡±


    ¡°S¨¬, signore,¡± Gontran stammered, gaining XP for his linguistic abilities. ¡°Mi dispiace, signore.¡±


    Annibale stared at him with frightening green eyes, took a deep breath, then pointed to the basilik, which the amazons had left behind the bowsprit. ¡°This is a new Roman weapon, cane, is it not?¡±


    Gontran hesitated. It was bad enough for the Romans to have basiliks. For the Venetians to have them¡ª


    Annibale struck Gontran with the whip again, this time on the other side of his face. He lost another five health, leaving him at 80/100, since he had yet to recover from the Marmara battle. The three Venetian companions laughed.


    ¡°S¨¬, signore,¡± Gontran said, doing his best to control his growing hatred for this man.


    ¡°You will demonstrate the method of its operation, Capitano Cane.¡±


    Standing and bowing, Gontran approached the basilik and armed it, explaining how to do so as he worked, always finishing his sentences with the word ¡°signore.¡± He was tempted to tell Annibale that it was best to stand right in front of the basilik when it was fired, but he suspected that the Venetian was too sharp for this obvious trick.


    ¡°Point this ¡®basilisco¡¯ of yours away from the Liona,¡± Annibale said. ¡°Then ignite.¡±


    Gontran bowed. ¡°It¡¯s going to be pretty loud, signore. I suggest covering your ears, signore.¡±


    ¡°Fear not, Capitano Cane, for we are men, and neither the fires of Etna¡ªnor the thunderings of Zeus about the peak of Olympus¡ªwill frighten those such as us. Besides, will it not be beautiful, to behold such weapons as these? With this iron and fire, we shall subdue the world.¡±


    ¡°Alright, don¡¯t say I didn¡¯t warn you, signore.¡±


    Annibale raised his whip. ¡°Do not command me, cane, neither grow familiar, even in jest.¡±


    Gontran bowed. ¡°Mi dispiace, signore.¡±


    ¡°Proceed.¡±


    Gontran bowed again, then turned the basilik, ignited the fuse, ducked to the side, and plugged his ears with his fingers. Annibale looked down at him with contempt. Suddenly the basilik blasted the air, wreathing the deck in acrid smoke and sending a black ball into the sea. In response, the four Venetians threw themselves to the deck. The drummer stopped drumming and cowered, then prayed to God, muttering in Slavic-accented Greek that the basilik was of the devil¡¯s making, for it reeked of unholy brimstone.


    Annibale climbed to his feet. Feigning nonchalance, he gently applauded Gontran. ¡°Well done, Capitano Cane. Now quick, return to your station, this vessel cannot row itself! And look, your friend, there, the Moro, he would appear to miss you. How longingly does he cast those rolling white eyes of his upon you, like two full moons in blackest night.¡±


    As Annibale and his three companions tittered, Gontran went back to his bench and sat beside Diaresso, who had never stopped glaring at him. Soon Gontran was locked to his bench and rowing again. Before long, his muscles were on fire, his bones ached, and he groaned in agony. The rest of the Paralos¡¯s crew was doing the same.


    We have to get out of here.


    The oars splashed, the men groaned, and the ship creaked as the sails were unfurled and the wind spilled inside, the prow slicing the waves. Evening could not come soon enough. Gontran never forgot the position of the sun, always telling himself that he only needed to keep rowing a little longer, and then everything would be alright. He told himself that Ra¡¯isa would free the crew. She would take care of everything.


    So stupid it seems desperate, he thought. ¡®Forge an alliance with the Venetians,¡¯ the workers¡¯ councils said. ¡®It¡¯ll be no problem,¡¯ they said. No, guys, it¡¯s a problem. The Venetians know which side their bread¡¯s buttered on. We should just head home after we escape, maybe ally with other cities in the area, who knows.


    Yet with each pull of the oar, Gontran felt himself growing angrier. It would be nice to throw these Venetian bastards into the sea and burn their city to the ground.


    Smash their dikes and flood their precious lagoon so that no one can build anything there ever again.


    Venice, he recalled, was a beautiful city in the old world¡ªperhaps the most beautiful. Bello, bello, bellissima! But he had never thought about the labor that had gone into all those duomos and campaniles, the black gothic arches and white marble fa?ades decked with statues of saints and angels. And he wasn''t even talking about the laborers and architects that had built those places. He was talking about the slaves who had earned the money necessary to build them.


    Just find me one Western city that wasn¡¯t built by slaves, he thought. I¡¯m begging you.


    Gontran wanted to talk with Diaresso beside him¡ªshoot the shit like in the old days, which were only a few hours in the past¡ªbut the man from Tomboutou was even more sullen than usual. Rowing these oars was unpleasant, but the Paralos crew was paid a wage, with an equal share in whatever spoils they took (whether via trade or piracy) as well as a vote in the ship¡¯s assembly. Anyone aboard could be elected katapan; a majority could vote Gontran out of office at any time. And so, wanting to save their strength, the Paralos crew only rowed when they were becalmed or during combat; oared ships were faster and more maneuverable than sailboats. But now the crew was enslaved, and their new maestri wanted to get home, which meant that the crew rowed continuously for hours, lowering their stamina to dangerous levels. If the crew slackened out of step with the beating drum, whips cracked behind them; if they needed to piss or shit, there was no time to be unchained and escorted to the side¡ªthey went where they sat.


    Disgusting.


    Thanks to this lack of sanitation, disease was guaranteed to wipe out the crew sooner or later. Doctor Ubayd was rowing along with the rest of the crew¡ªwould the Venetians even respect a Saracen as a doctor? And how could the man even help, under these conditions?


    But if a bunch of people died on the voyage, it was no big deal. The Venetians could always find more slaves, and it was probably better to get rid of your old stock and replenish it with fresh blood. Fresh, vigorous, ignorant, perfect. The instant any slave aboard showed the slightest sign of sickness, the maestri would toss them over the side. It was safe, convenient, efficient. The weak needed to make way for the strong; blood lubricated the Venetian economy.


    Gontran was worried, in particular, about his disabled comrades Dmitri Anatolyevich, Ibn Ismail, and Athanasios. Each had lost a limb during the Marmara battle. The Venetians were tolerating their presence for now, but Ibn Ismail, in particular¡ªwith his one arm¡ªwas having a hard time keeping up with rowing, while Dmitri Anatolyevich and Athanasios, with one leg each, had trouble balancing as they sat on the benches. How long until the Venetians just dumped these men over the side?


    Gontran gritted his teeth with rage, focusing on the Venetians because he wanted to think about anything other than how he had ended up in this situation. Yet accusations crept back into his mind.


    You agreed to do this. Those cultists, those idealists told you to play nice with the Venetians. Nobody forced you. You knew it was suicide, but you went with it anyway.


    He soon found that the only escape was to row so hard that he lost himself in the agony of slave labor. This made all thought impossible. What was thought, after all, except another way for the world to wound you? It was bad enough to be a slave, and even worse for your own mind to remind you of that fact.


    As Gontran worked harder, Diaresso rasped that he was a fool and a bootlicker for putting in more than the minimum their owners required.


    ¡°Just trying to make the best of a bad situation,¡± Gontran whispered, speaking so quietly that he could barely hear himself.


    The whip came hard and fast, and like a lightning bolt it knocked Gontran to the deck beneath the bench, where the slaves¡¯ piss and shit was already gathering. A pig in filth, he rolled in it for the instant it took him to climb back to his oar, so shocked he felt numb. He had lost another five health.


    Now all he could do was row. Those slaves nearest to him, Diaresso included, either wrinkled their noses in disgust at the reek rising from his body, or they glanced at him with pity. Soon enough, Gontran could not help pitying himself.


    The lowest I¡¯ve ever been, he thought. The worst day of my life. Worse than being a peasant on Chlotar¡¯s plantation. They never whipped anyone there. You did your job and you went home, that was it. Half the time you worked your own land for your own family. But here¡­


    He looked to his crew laboring in the afternoon light. Each sweaty face wore its own unique expression of misery. Whenever the black-clad Venetians walked past, everyone looked down or away. To meet their eyes¡ªas blue-green as the drowning sea¡ªinvited death.


    What if we never escape? Gontran thought. What if it¡¯s like this for the rest of our lives? No¡ªof course we¡¯ll escape. Ra''isa and Talia will break us free. The Venetians don¡¯t know who they¡¯re dealing with. But what about all the other slaves who are out there right now, the ones who have been laboring for years without any hope of escape? Where are you even supposed to go? Trebizond¡¯s the only place that¡¯s anti-slavery, and it¡¯s practically on the other side of the world. It¡¯s half-mythical, it might as well be on another planet, most people don¡¯t even believe something like that can exist. They believe slavery only ends in the afterlife. Think about those people, then think about the millions of slaves who labored for their entire lives for centuries before now, all the ones who never got away.


    The whip cracked in the air behind him. Gontran tensed up, rowing more furiously, his jaws grinding together hard enough to break his teeth. Annibale Loredan strode past in his haughty way, his hands held behind his straight back, a carefree smile on his handsome face, his long blond hair gleaming in the sea breeze. A perfect body, a life of no worries, never a meal missed, his belly full of good things, everything always taken care of. If he gambled away one mansion, don¡¯t worry, his relatives had a hundred more, and they were always happy to help out.


    As soon as Annibale turned away, Gontran glared at him so hard it was a wonder he didn¡¯t burn holes in the man¡¯s back.


    Yes, many slaves never escaped. But some did. And some even killed their masters, not caring that there was nowhere to go. Not caring that they were doomed.


    The four Venetians kept the Paralos crew rowing until it was too dark to see. Clouds had gathered, the night was black, and their escort, the Liona, was only a candle flame flickering in the void. Sternward, the Venetians had ordered the amazons to set up a red tent, one tied to the wales. They called this tent the tenda di comando. Now they were lounging underneath the tent on blankets, heating themselves before the fire whirling in a bronze brazier, ordering the amazons about, and feeling them up. These warriors they had taken as personal servants. The amazons were still chained, but Annibale had torn off Ra¡¯isa¡¯s green hijab and thrown it over the side, as well as the headscarves belonging to Zainab and Zulaika al-Jariya, muttering that no Saraceni could taint ships which belonged to good Christians. This shocked Gontran¡ªhow could Annibale do this to them? Yet the temptation to see Ra¡¯isa without her hijab was too great. Gontran stared at her gleaming brown hair for a moment in disbelief, then averted his eyes. It was wrong. Losing your hijab was like being stripped naked. Now he felt sorry for her¡ªangry for her¡ªbut also angry at himself. It was a break from this endless misery to look, even for an instant, at one so beautiful. How could he have never noticed? And yet it was wrong to delight in the sight of her, since she must have been ashamed.


    Gontran went back and forth like this for several minutes. His emotions were all over the place. But sadly for Ra¡¯isa, she had more to worry about than emotions. Losing her hijab was only the beginning of her troubles. Annibale would order her to pour more black Trapezuntine wine into his cup; then, as she did this, he would stare down her shirt with wide eyes and raised eyebrows to amuse his three companions. (Gontran had learned that their names were Marco Morosini, Agustin Ludovici, and Giovanni Battista.) Then Annibale would down the wine in one gulp and order her to pour more, and stare at her chest again as she bent over for him.


    Why does she tolerate this? Gontran thought. What¡¯s she waiting for?


    She could have knocked them all to the deck too quickly to see. Walking through a city crowded with men leering at her, telling her to smile, catcalling her, Ra¡¯isa could have killed them all with her hands and feet alone. But here on the Paralos she hesitated.


    Why?


    Gontran was so weary that he was leaning on Diaresso, who was himself leaning on the wale and too tired to shove him off. Caked in dried sweat and god knew what else, his back throbbing from Annibale¡¯s lashing, his muscles torn and aching, Gontran had never thought such misery possible, nor had he known that he could row so hard for so long, the drum always pounding behind him, the maestri¡¯s whips splitting the air.


    ¡°Is it not good?¡± Annibale said to his three friends. ¡°Good to get a good rhythm going?¡±


    On top of all this, the temperature was dropping, and people were shivering. What did the Venetians care? Wrapped in warm thick blankets and coats lined with wolf pelts before brazier flames that lapped at the night, they were too busy drinking, joking, laughing, reciting poetry, singing.


    They win, we lose.


    Gontran wanted to keep awake to see Ra¡¯isa and the amazons take revenge, but he was so tired that his eyes closed by themselves and refused to open.

 4. Candle Flame

    Someone was grunting. When Gontran opened his eyes, all was dark save the fire flickering in the braziers beneath the stern''s red tent. Every Venetian was asleep except for Annibale, who had mounted Ra¡¯isa beneath the red canvass fluttering in the firelight. She lay on the blankets on her back, her face turned away.


    Now Gontran felt only disgust. Before he knew what he was doing, he stood to his feet and lunged toward her, his chains ringing. Annibale stopped humping Ra¡¯isa and looked toward Gontran, but what could he see from the bright stern except darkness? In an instant, Ra¡¯isa whirled around, wrapped her strong legs around Annibale, and wrestled him to the deck. There, before he could make a sound, she strangled him with the manacles chained to her wrists. He stuck out his tongue, and his eyes bulged.


    Gontran wanted to cheer, but he restrained himself. His heart throbbed in his chest as he glanced back and forth into the darkness, wondering if anyone else was seeing this. Adrenaline surged in his veins, and his muscles and bones forgot their exhaustion, especially since sleep had restored some of his stamina.


    It was finally happening. They were finally breaking free. They had only been enslaved a day, but that had been long enough.


    Ra¡¯isa whispered into Annibale¡¯s ears, loosening her grip so he could breathe. He reached into his pocket, withdrew a keychain, and unlocked her manacles, though she kept them tight around his neck. Once freed, she pulled the whip from his belt and tossed it over the side¡ªit splashed gently into the sea¡ªthen drew Annibale¡¯s sword and held it to his throat as he locked himself in her manacles. He unlocked the other amazons sleeping nearby, fastening their manacles to his three friends'' wrists. The four Venetians were then chained to the mainmast. All but Annibale were so drunk that they remained asleep. Ra¡¯isa flung their whips into the sea and gave their swords to her waking comrades. Then she whispered for Zulaika al-Jariya to unlock the galley slaves. Gontran was the only one among these who was awake. When he was free, he thanked Zulaika, and stepped quietly to Ra¡¯isa, kneeling before her in gratitude¡ªsomething he had sworn he would never do for anyone. Then he bowed, touching his forehead to the deck and whispering his thanks.


    ¡°It is my job,¡± she whispered.


    Gontran stood and looked at her, wondering in all seriousness if she was human, or divine. Then his eyes fell on Annibale, sitting with his back to the mainmast, a wrathful expression on his face. He spat toward Gontran.


    Gontran lunged toward Annibale and raised his fist to punch him. Before he could strike, Ra¡¯isa pulled him back. She was shockingly strong.


    ¡°We still need them,¡± she said. ¡°We still have mission.¡±


    ¡°What mission?" Gontran said. ¡°Who cares about the mission? You still want to go to Venice, a place crawling with these guys, this filth?¡±


    ¡°You should know of filth, Capitano Cane,¡± Annibale said. ¡°It¡¯s your element, is it not?¡±


    This time Ra¡¯isa was unable to restrain Gontran¡ªor she let him go¡ªand he punched Annibale as hard as he could, knocking the Venetian to the deck. Gontran¡¯s fist hurt, and he even lost one health¡ªhe was only an Apprentice Brawler (3/10)¡ªbut that didn''t stop him. He kicked Annibale¡¯s belly, forcing the wind from the Venetian¡¯s lungs so that he gaped on the wooden floorboards like a fish plucked from the sea. Then Gontran dragged Annibale to the nearest pile of shit on the deck, shoved his face in it, and even grabbed it and stuffed it into his mouth.


    ¡°You like that?¡± Gontran growled. ¡°You want some more?¡±


    Ra¡¯isa pulled him back. ¡°Enough,¡± she said. ¡°You cannot treat prisoner like this. Even prisoner you hate.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll make him row in the morning,¡± Gontran said. ¡°We¡¯ll whip him hard the instant he slows down. We¡¯ll see how he likes it.¡±


    Annibale spat out the shit in his mouth. ¡°Do whatever pleases you, Capitano Cane. I will always be a bright Hyperion, and you a dark satyr¡ª¡±


    ¡°I think he¡¯s talked enough for one day,¡± Gontran said to Ra¡¯isa. He picked up a Venetian cutlass lying on the deck and, before anyone could stop him, cut a strip of cloth from Annibale¡¯s fine black velvet doublet. Then he tied this strip around Annibale¡¯s mouth. For a moment the Venetian glared at him and spoke more, but his voice was too muffled to understand.


    ¡°Big improvement,¡± Gontran said to Ra¡¯isa, tucking the cutlass into his belt. ¡°Make shitheads shut the fuck up forever.¡±


    She smiled, and in response he felt something flicker within him, a sweetness he had forgotten. He wondered again: how could he have never noticed her?


    She was just a warrior, he thought. A brutal peasant woman. Too manly for my tastes. One of the cultists who gave her life to the uprising, who would have done anything for Herakleia. I didn¡¯t personally like her, but I respected her. And now¡­


    Gontran recalled that he was still covered in filth. Though it was night, and sharks were prowling the sea, their serrated jaws gaping wide into the sloshing brine, he needed to wash himself, and he knew how to swim thanks to learning back in the old world. At once he left Ra¡¯isa, went belowdecks, and found soap, a towel, a flask of fresh water, and a change of clothes. Back on deck, he explained what he was up to, and apologized to the amazons, who were the only ones awake. They turned away as he stripped off his disgusting clothes and tossed them over the side. Then, dangling a rope into the sea, he lowered himself into the freezing brine for just a moment, and scrubbed his flesh hard, worried that a shark would lunge from the deep and bite his feet off.


    Pulling himself back on deck, he sudsed his skin with soap, rinsed off the saltwater with some fresh water, toweled himself dry, and pulled on his new clothes, conscious of his nudity, afraid to see if the amazons were watching. This improved his health by one point, leaving him at 75/100. Shivering, he wrapped himself in the blankets beneath the red tenda di comando, where the amazons were already waiting. The rest of the crew was still asleep, unaware of their freedom.


    ¡°Should we wake them?¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Let them rest,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°They need strength tomorrow.¡±


    He remembered that there was another Venetian ship prowling nearby, the Liona. Forgetting the cold, he bolted out of the blankets and looked into the distant darkness for the candle flame he had seen earlier. It was still in the same spot. His shoulders fell, and he sighed with relief.


    ¡°Jesus,¡± he whispered, falling back into the blankets.


    ¡°We come to Venice in morning,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Maybe afternoon.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s that possible?¡± Gontran said. ¡°We sailed halfway up the Adriatic in just one day?¡±


    ¡°We work hard, make good time,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Annibale tells me.¡±


    ¡°What are we going to do?¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°You are katapan. You decide¡ªCapitano Cane.¡± Ra¡¯isa laughed, as did the other amazons.


    ¡°Captain Dog,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Very funny. Still.¡± He looked at Annibale, who was sitting slumped against the mast in the darkness, his head turned away. ¡°Still, getting enslaved for one day was enough. I¡¯m not getting enslaved again.¡±


    ¡°Now we take hostages,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Annibale and his friends¡ªGiovanni, Marco, Agustin¡ªthey are important. They are, how do you say in Yewnan?? Big shots. We return them to Venice in exchange.¡±


    ¡°In exchange for what?¡± Gontran said. ¡°You think the city¡¯s going to ally with us if we threaten their little golden boys?¡±


    ¡°In exchange for respect,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°The chance to speak.¡±


    Gontran shook his head. ¡°No. I¡¯m not going there. They¡¯ll kill us, enslave us, steal the ship and drown us. There¡¯s no reason to go. We¡¯ve seen what they¡¯re like. They¡¯re just as bad as when they came to Trebizond. Nothing has changed. The words that¡¯ll change their minds don¡¯t exist, Ra¡¯isa. They don¡¯t care about words¡ªthey just care about money.¡±


    ¡°Sounds familiar.¡± She smiled at her friends.


    ¡°No¡ªnot like me,¡± Gontran said. ¡°They can¡¯t be trusted. There are other cities. We can try the Normans in Sicily. There¡¯s¡ª¡±


    ¡°We vote in morning.¡± Ra¡¯isa looked at her fellow amazons, all of whom were falling asleep. ¡°When crew wakes.¡±


    Gontran clutched his head. ¡°Right, let the crew decide.¡± He thought, but did not say: let the morons decide.


    ¡°You think we want to die?¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°You think we like the living death of slavery?¡±


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The image of Annibale on top of Ra¡¯isa flashed in Gontran¡¯s mind. ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°I have given more to uprising than you know. We have duty, all of us. We must all sacrifice.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Gontran watched her, remembering how intimidating she could be, afraid of telling her that it was simplistic to divide the world into us versus them. ¡°Still, it¡¯s strange. Evil never seems like it has to work that hard. But good always has to do so much.¡±


    Ra¡¯isa shrugged. ¡°For Venetians, it¡¯s easy. They have money¡ªlots of money. They pay soldiers. And those soldiers have choice. They can be bad, and get money now. Or they can be good, and maybe get money later. Many choose money now. It¡¯s easy. Simple. As for us, what do we have? Only people. Many people. And to have many people, it is hard to organize. Money tempts us. Tempts us to betray. For us, everything is harder. But there is difference: we are right.¡±


    Gontran thought that they sounded like cult members when they talked like this, splitting the world into black and white, good and evil.


    Yet this is what science teaches, Ra¡¯isa said in his thoughts. Some things in nature are true, others false. Gravity is not up for argument.


    ¡°Where did you learn about gravity?¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°At uprising school. Strategos taught me.¡±


    ¡°Alright, but look. Human societies aren¡¯t as simple as nature.¡±


    ¡°Humans are part of nature,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°You cannot separate them when it is convenient for you. And do you not speak of ¡®human nature¡¯¡ªthis simple human nature that is always greedy, that is always cruel¡ªonly when we speak of destroying slavery, feudalism, wage labor? Does this not excuse injustice? If human nature is always same, why do we not live in caves or forests, like first men, first women? We are on ship in middle of sea!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk about this anymore,¡± Gontran said. He was feeling angry, frustrated, confused. Despite the fact that, as a rogue, his intelligence was at Journeyman level (6/10), this happened whenever he argued with Mazdakists. You could never change their minds. They always had an answer for everything.


    ¡°Of course not, katapan,¡± Ra¡¯isa said.


    Gontran had the sense that she was toying with him. Yet her eyelids were trembling, and she was struggling to keep them open. She must have been exhausted. Unlike Gontran, she had never gotten a break since their capture. Yet she was still strong enough to smoke him in an improvised debate¡ªin her second language.


    ¡°You can sleep,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll keep an eye on our prisoners and make sure the Liona doesn¡¯t sneak up on us.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Wake us at dawn. The Liona will be watching.¡±


    ¡°Right. Then we¡¯ll have to argue about our next moves in a committee.¡±


    ¡°Democracy makes us stronger, even if it seems inconvenient.¡± Ra¡¯isa shut her eyes, lay back in the blankets, and stretched out her limbs like a cozy cat. Gontran wanted to keep arguing with her, but she was snoring before he could think of a rebuttal.


    He chuckled. It was funny that she had fallen asleep so fast.


    Such a true believer, she passes out in the middle of lecturing me about democracy.


    Gontran had no problem with voting every year or two for representatives in the government. But to make everyone vote everywhere all the time? It was so chaotic, obeying an emperor almost would have made more sense! Still, he had already talked about this with Mazdakists. What had Herakleia told him? ¡°The way you think about worker democracy is the way feudal lords and slave masters think about liberal democracy.¡±


    He scoffed. Might work in theory, but not in practice.


    Yet he could even hear Herakleia¡¯s response. ¡°If something is good in theory, it¡¯ll also be good in practice. Nobody says the theory of relativity, for instance, is good in theory, but not in practice.¡±


    But this was an effective way to stay awake¡ªjust keep thinking about politics. Gontran could argue with his memories like a madman all night. The best thing about this was that, unlike in real life, he always won. His rhetorical abilities always rendered his mental opponents speechless.


    His eyes fell on Annibale, barely visible in the brazier light. The Venetian¡¯s eyes were closed, and his head was tilted to the side, the black velvet rag still tied around his mouth, his face smeared with shit. Gontran had never in his life thought he could stuff shit in a person¡¯s mouth. But these Venetians made him so angry, they pushed him to new extremes.


    I thought I knew who I was. ¡®Know thyself¡¯¡ªit¡¯s such a basic concept. But I had barely scratched the surface.


    Being here had taught him about his own nature. It was always changing. It changed depending on circumstance. For instance, at this point he could hardly remember his name in the old world. Back there, a thousand years in the future, across what the Arab navigators called the Green Sea of Darkness¡ªthe Atlantic¡ªGontran was a girl named Helena Lee. She was a Sere. That¡¯s what people here might call her. A lonely, mousy girl dedicated to her studies in a strange place where everyone spent many years in school. That was there. When he had been transported here¡ªsomehow¡ªhe had changed. Bit by bit, he had stopped being Helena Lee, and had transformed into Gontran Koraki, the rogue Frankish merchant and runaway peasant who had gotten caught up in a slave revolt in Roman¨ªa. It was like that story from the old world¡ªthe one about going to the planet Mars. (People in that place told each other these kinds of fanciful tales.) These characters went to Mars, and then slowly transformed into Martians, to the point where they became unrecognizable both in their appearances as well as their thinking. That story had terrified him when he had read it, but the same thing was happening to him here.


    This place is changing me.


    Dawn lightened the darkness. This, as usual, presented problems. What was the Paralos crew supposed to do about the Liona? The latter ship would sail for Venice the instant the blinding forehead of the sun peaked above the horizon. Even now, the sun was tinging the night with the deepest shades of blue, and the stars were beginning to fade. If the Paralos followed the Liona, they would need to keep up their brutal pace, and spend another day oaring like¡ªwell, like galley slaves. But if the Paralos showed the slightest sign of trouble, the Liona would attack, forcing the Paralos to fight or flee.


    What do I do?


    He shook the crew awake, one by one, bringing them bread, cheese, and watery wine. It was amazing to see their reactions as he told them they were free. Each had been too tired to wake when their manacles had been unlocked; they had slept on the benches piled atop each other. Now it was the sweetest thing for them to learn that they were no longer enslaved. Some men sprang up, shouted, pumped their fists, grabbed each other¡¯s hands, and danced in circles, improvising entire songs, startling the others. All were exhausted, but their fatigue vanished when they realized that they were now working for themselves rather than for their masters. Quickly they cleaned the deck and returned to their usual tasks, though most took a moment to spit on the four chained Venetians and curse them. The fifth man, the drummer who seemed to be a slave¡ªhe had been chained up since his arrival onboard, his skin filthy and clothed in rags¡ªbowed to Gontran on one knee and swore him allegiance. Gontran rolled his eyes, helped him up, and asked his name.


    ¡°Drosaik, my lord,¡± he said, looking to the four Venetians chained to the mast. ¡°Do not mistake me for one of those kurac. I am from Lastova. They captured and enslaved me many months ago. They burned my village, and anyone they did not enslave they killed¡ª¡±


    ¡°That was a pirate¡¯s nest,¡± Annibale said, having woken up and struggled free from the cloth gagging his mouth. ¡°Lastova, the last refuge of the Narentani. We only gave you and your bastard friends what they deserved, Narentano. I would do it again, a thousand times I would. Pagan scum Sclaveni like you are fit only to be slaves, or to be impaled upon my rapier like chunks of meat roasting over an open flame¡ª¡±


    Drosaik walked past Gontran, seized Annibale¡¯s black velvet collar with one hand, and punched him hard with the other, splashing the air with blood. He was winding up for another punch when Gontran pulled him back.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Drosaik cried. ¡°Take your hand away!¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡± Gontran eyed Ra¡¯isa, who was watching him while sipping water from a flask. ¡°She stopped me from killing this guy last night. But we need to keep him fresh.¡±


    ¡°Fresh? Fresh for what?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the question.¡± Gontran let Drosaik go. The Narentine pirate glared down at Annibale as if about to spit on him again.


    ¡°No,¡± Drosaik said. ¡°You are not good enough for my spit.¡±


    Annibale the witty poet could think of no response. He just turned away.


    Gontran looked over the side of the ship to the Liona¡ªstill visible in the distant murk of early morning.


    He turned back to the crew. ¡°Everyone, we need to make up our minds. Do we continue onward to Venice, or should we go someplace else?¡±


    ¡°To Venecija?¡± Drosaik said. ¡°Why would you go to such a place? What will they do except put you in irons once more?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only what you deserve,¡± Annibale said.


    Gontran told him to shut up, then replaced the gag around his mouth, and tightened it.


    ¡°The council want us to go to Venice,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°To Venice, then, we should go.¡±


    Much of the crew nodded their assent, though some were speaking with one another. Diaresso was leaning over the side, looking to the west, almost as though he wanted to dive into the sea and swim all the way back to the Libyan shore, to the orchards along the Maghreb coast. He had been silent and sullen since regaining his freedom.


    ¡°Well?¡± Gontran said to him. ¡°What do you think?¡±


    These words startled Diaresso. He glared at Gontran, then looked back to the sea. ¡°Each adventure you drag me into is worst than the last. I have been thinking for some time of going my own way.¡±


    Gontran shrugged. ¡°I know this trip hasn¡¯t been easy for you. But you can¡¯t go it alone. Nobody survives out here by themselves.¡±


    ¡°And yet to be with you is worse than being alone. I swore I would never be enslaved again¡ªand look at what happened to me! What if the Venetians had slain the warrior women? Then where would we be?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re lucky they didn¡¯t.¡±


    Diaresso scoffed. ¡°Luck is all you have, not skill, not intelligence. And luck, as they say, has a habit of changing.¡± He looked to the crew. ¡°They seek to travel to Venice. That is their folly. I shall not join them. I shall not risk a third enslavement. Once was a horror, twice a tragedy. The third time shall kill me, and doom my family to unspeakable torment for the rest of their days upon this Earth. Days? Ha! They shall not be days. Even with the sun blazing in their faces, they shall know only night for the rest of their lives, if such an existence can even be called life.¡±


    ¡°Diaresso¡ª¡±


    ¡°Do not speak to me again. I am not yours to command. Should we sight land to the west, all I ask of you is that you let me go ashore. By the grace of Allah, I shall find my way home.¡±


    Gontran looked at him, almost too sad to speak. ¡°If that¡¯s what you want.¡±


    ¡°I know not wants, only needs, giaour. I need to survive. And here¡­¡± He looked down to the waves swirling in the darkness beneath the ship. ¡°There is no chance of that. This expedition is doomed. It was folly from the very first.¡±


    ¡°Katapan!¡± shouted David Halevi¡ªrebellious son of a rabbi, and now a Kitezhi sailor¡ªpointing to the bow. ¡°Look!¡±


    All the bustle on the Paralos stopped, and everyone turned toward the direction Halevi was indicating. It was the Liona. Her crew must have noticed that something was amiss with her prize. Now the Venetian ship was rowing toward the Paralos.

 5. Our Partnership Is Over

    The Paralos crew decided to feign their continued enslavement in order to capture the Liona. This would be difficult, and it could mean fighting hundreds of sailors. Drosaik warned that the Liona¡¯s crew was mostly Venetian, adding that even the rowers worshipped the lion of San Marco.


    ¡°Soon they worship god of the death,¡± Ra¡¯isa said.


    To prepare for the engagement, the Paralos crew first chained up Annibale, Morosini, Ludovici, and Battista (who were also gagged) in the hold. Since Annibale¡¯s clothes were torn and disgusting, Gontran took a different black velvet doublet and tights from the drowsy, depressed, and hungover Marco Morosini¡ªat sword point. Just as Gontran was finishing putting on his new clothes, which reeked of wine and sweat, he noticed the figure of Talia shining in the darkness like a bronze statue beside a pile of swords and miniature basiliks which the Venetians had stolen from his crew.


    ¡°I forgot about her,¡± Gontran said to himself. ¡°Maybe we aren¡¯t so screwed after all.¡±


    Morosini tried to speak through his gag to Annibale, who shook his head¡ªonce¡ªso angrily it was a miracle he didn¡¯t break his own neck.


    Gontran approached Talia, opened her firebox, and with his flint and steel smashed sparks into the piles of coal inside her. Once flames were leaping in her chest, he closed her firebox back up again. Two blue flames ignited in her segmented metal eyes, which focused as her head turned to face him, startling the Venetians, whose shouts of fright were muffled by their gags as they struggled to escape, their manacles ringing against the wooden pillar to which they were chained.


    ¡°Trouble?¡± Talia said to Gontran with her pipe organ voice.


    ¡°You said it.¡± Gontran picked up his pistol-sword from the nearby pile and tucked it into his belt. ¡°Slave masters.¡±


    ¡°I hate slave masters.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°Slave masters and merchants are all scum, reaping where they do not sow.¡±


    ¡°Hang on, let¡¯s not tar everyone with the same brush.¡±


    The Venetians watched, transfixed, as Talia and Gontran climbed back to the deck, the latter explaining the plan to the former. At first Gontran and the amazons thought they could position Talia by the mainmast and have her pretend to be a bronze statue, but¡ªsince statues usually lack flaming blue eyes and steam hissing from their segmented limbs¡ªthis was soon found to be impractical. She hid, instead, behind the red tenda di comando among the steering oars. Gontran smoothfed his hair and clasped his hands behind his back¡ªwhich he straightened, pacing back and forth in the most Venetian way he could manage, as his crew returned to their benches and clasped themselves in their manacles, though this time these were kept unlocked. They hid swords at their sides. Since Dmitri Anatolyevich and Athanasius would have difficulty moving around, given that each was missing a leg, they were equipped with miniature basiliks. Ibn Ismail, with his one arm, had a sword. Doctor Ubayd, in the mean time, got his medical supplies ready.


    ¡°We let them come aboard, then seize them,¡± Ra¡¯isa explained. ¡°If they are problem, we will shoot basilik and sink them.¡± She nodded to the basilik, which was still leaning over the prow.


    ¡°That could jeopardize the mission,¡± Gontran said. ¡°There¡¯s almost no way Venice will work with us to begin with¡ªand if we kill any of their leaders¡­¡±


    ¡°If we are slaves again, then mission is failure,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°If Venetians win, they kill us amazons, thinking us too dangerous. Then you, Gontran Koraki, they send to salt mines. You are soft man, soft like flower, so there you last not a day.¡± She checked his body up and down, a smile tinging the edge of her pursed lips.


    ¡°So we don¡¯t have much of a choice,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°We never do,¡± Ra¡¯isa said.


    The amazons hid belowdecks and armed their miniature basiliks while Gontran walked back to the red tenda di comando, as far from the bowsprit as possible. With a little luck, the Venetians wouldn¡¯t recognize him until it was too late. In the mean time, the rest of the crew had gotten to work oaring the ship, though everyone¡¯s muscles were still sore from yesterday. Now they were headed for the Liona, which soon pulled up alongside them. A crewman aboard the Liona tossed a rope, and Drosaik caught it, his chains ringing, as both ships rowed in reverse to slow to a stop.


    Capitano Loredan climbed aboard with no one else save a brown-cowled monk, presumably his secretary, who was sunburned almost to a crisp, the white skin peeling from his nose and bald pate.


    ¡°Well.¡± Loredan smiled, his hands on his hips as he looked at the Paralos crew. ¡°Well, well, well. We had worried there was some trouble aboard this fine ship, but it seems you¡¯ve quite squared everything away, my dear Annibale.¡± He looked to Gontran¡ªwho was still standing as far off as possible in the red shade of the tenda di comando¡ªand narrowed his eyes. ¡°Annibale?¡±


    ¡°¨¦ un pirata!¡± the monk shouted, pointing at Gontran with a soft hand.


    The Paralos crew threw off their chains, drew their swords, and seized Loredan and his secretary. Diaresso aimed his crossbow at the Liona¡ªthe enemy crew was still only staring at them¡ªwhile the amazons climbed up from the hold clutching their miniature basiliks. Gontran drew his pistol-sword and also took aim at the Liona.


    ¡°Venetian crew!¡± he shouted. ¡°In the name of the Republic of Trebizond, surrender or die!¡±


    The Venetian crew members looked at each other for a moment, and then¡ªstanding from their rowing benches and drawing their swords¡ªthey screamed: ¡°Viva San Marco!¡±


    Hundreds leaped aboard the Paralos, and their swords clashed against those of the Kitezhi and Trapezuntines as the ship swayed. Both sides fought hard. Bodies that looked like they¡¯d been drenched in red paint tumbled to the deck, and men missing limbs crawled on the blood-soaked wood crying for acqua or voda or ner¨® as sailors¡¯ bare feet stomped their faces and crushed their hands. Gontran fired his pistol-sword into the chest of an old bald toothless man who was charging him, waving a sword¡ªwhose white beard stretched down to his chest, now red with blood as he fell to the deck, clutching his spurting wound.


    Critical hit! the game voice shouted, granting Gontran additional XP for his dexterity skill.


    He folded the pistol-sword¡¯s blades around its barrel¡ªthe metal scalding his fingers¡ªjust in time to deflect a blow from a spear wielded by a boy who looked like Joseph. Gontran froze, staring at him, unable to believe his eyes. Growling, the boy stabbed at him again, but Gontran seized the spear in his spare hand, pulled it loose, and smashed the boy¡¯s face with the blunt end, knocking him to the deck. Holding his bruised face with one hand, the boy crawled away and hid beneath a pile of bodies. Gontran watched him for a moment before returning his attention to the battle.


    Things went as expected. Though the Liona had greater numbers, the Paralos had amazons, while Talia swept through the enemy like a screaming buzz saw, their bodies thumping to the deck around her, their red blood spraying everywhere. They had never seen anything like her. What was she? A knight who was armored, head to toe, in bronze? But how could a woman fight like this¡ªhow could these women move too quickly to see? Earlier they had surrendered without complaint; now they were like lions attacking a flock of sheep.


    Soon enough, the enemy crew was either fleeing to their ship or falling to their knees, dropping their weapons, and begging for mercy. Different voices cried ¡°piet¨¤!¡± across the Paralos deck.


    The enemy survivors were manacled using the chains stored in their own ship. As for the enemy dead, they were dumped over the side, their comrades crossing themselves and murmuring prayers. They had lost dozens, most of them to Talia¡ªwho was drenched in gore, the blood dripping from her fingertips. As for the Paralos crew, seven had perished¡ªincluding Doctor Abu Ubayd¡ªwhile fifteen were wounded.


    Eighty crew members left.


    Ra¡¯isa, Zaynab, and Zulaika al-Jaryia were bandaging their wounds while the other two amazons searched the Liona with Talia for Venetian stragglers.


    Capitano Loredan and his monk secretary, who was named Brother Domenico Malatesta¡ªtruly a bad head in every sense of the term¡ªhad survived. Gontran brought up Annibale and his friends from belowdecks, removed their gags, and chained them together with the Capitano and the monk under the tenda di comando. They were given water, as were the captured enemy sailors, though Annibale had the audacity to demand wine, as only befit his noble station. Gontran held the cup of water to his lips, but Annibale turned his head away.


    ¡°Suit yourself.¡± Gontran gave the water to Annibale¡¯s father Loredan, who drank, and then nodded his thanks. Soon he was staring at Talia as an amazon washed the blood from her bronze armor.


    ¡°What¡ªwhat is that?¡± Loredan said.


    ¡°Good question.¡± Gontran turned to Talia. ¡°Hey, what are you?¡±


    ¡°I am an automat¨­n,¡± she said with her pipe organ voice. ¡°By Hephaistos built.¡±


    ¡°How can that be?¡± Loredan said. ¡°Hephaistos¡ªwasn¡¯t he a pagan deity?¡±


    ¡°He is the master craftsman, and he constructed me,¡± Talia said.


    ¡°Blasphemy,¡± Brother Malatesta said. ¡°She is but a demon animated by the spirit of Satan, nothing more.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s one way of putting it.¡± Gontran winked at Talia, though he was unsure she understood.


    He next searched for Diaresso, who was by the Paralos¡¯s bowsprit, keeping away from everyone for some reason.


    Turning back to the captured Venetian leadership, Gontran asked: ¡°Listen, is there anything else we can do?¡±


    Brother Malatesta cleared his throat. ¡°Grant us our freedom, and throw yourselves into the sea.¡±


    He looked to his friends to see if they would laugh at his joke, but they were silent.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be freeing you soon enough,¡± Gontran said. ¡°We don¡¯t plan on hurting any of you.¡±


    ¡°It would be better to kill us,¡± said Marco Morosini, one of Annibale¡¯s friends, still hungover from last night. ¡°For the shame of losing to a pack of women.¡±


    ¡°Try not to feel so bad,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Lots of people made the same mistake. You¡¯re just the most recent.¡±


    Morosini was unable to say anything in response.


    Gontran turned to Capitano Loredan. ¡°Now are you willing to listen to our proposal?¡±


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    ¡°We do not speak on strictly honorable terms,¡± Loredan said. ¡°Not as equals, I mean.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, equality, my favorite word,¡± Gontran said. ¡°But is it really possible for any two people to be perfectly equal?¡±


    ¡°In the eyes of the Lord,¡± Brother Malatesta said.


    ¡°Shut up,¡± Annibale growled.


    ¡°Listen,¡± Gontran said. ¡°You can hear us out, if you want, or you can just wait here until we drop you off in Venice. It¡¯s your choice.¡±


    No answer came from the Venetian officers.


    True believers, Gontran thought. God himself couldn¡¯t change their minds.


    He turned to the other prisoners, who were sitting all over the deck in the morning sun, their hands chained behind their backs, including the child with Joseph¡¯s face who had attacked Gontran during the battle. Drosaik had already identified the few Liona crew members who were slaves and who could be relied upon to join the uprising; one slave, he said, was a kurac who lapped at the boots of his masters like a thirsty dog¡ªJacopo Orlandi, an unransomed Pisan captured in a forgotten sea battle near Cyprus, always hopeful that his captors would release him if he just worked hard enough, always eager to rat out his fellow slaves.


    As for the few other slaves who had been trapped aboard the Liona, they were from across the Mediterranean, and wanted nothing to do with Venice. These might be persuaded to join the uprising. There was a Touareg from Sicily, Hassan Ali, bereft of his black and blue veils for months, and anxious to cover his face now that he had a chance to do so. He was joined by two Kretan Arabs. One was simply named ¡°the Cordoban,¡± though he had apparently never even been to Cordoba. ¡°It is just a family name,¡± Drosaik explained. ¡°That¡¯s all I know.¡± The other Kretan was named Abu Hafs. Diaresso spoke with all three, relieved to have found more fellow Saracens. Finally, there came four Sclavenians from Servia and Dalmatia¡ªStjepan, Kulin, Krva?, and Radoje, all Drosaik¡¯s friends, young men, thin and tired. Such people the Venetians always assumed were Narentine pirates, which meant that they were killed or enslaved on sight.


    ¡°Lot of new names to remember.¡± Gontran met their eyes. ¡°Welcome aboard, everyone. You can fight for us if you want, or we¡¯ll drop you off somewhere along the way¡ª¡±


    ¡°You fight the Veneti?¡± the Cordoban said.


    ¡°We¡¯re trying to make friends with them, but they aren¡¯t making it easy,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°I will join you if you fight them,¡± the Cordoban said. ¡°And fight you if you join them.¡±


    ¡°It might be easier if we dropped you off on the way,¡± Gontran said. ¡°The Narentine islands aren¡¯t far from here.¡±


    ¡°Yes, you can drop us off.¡± Drosaik looked away from his Sclavenian friends. ¡°We would so appreciate it. Any of the outlying islands would be¡ª¡±


    ¡°This ship is not public service.¡± Ra¡¯isa looked up from bandaging the wounded. ¡°We have mission to destroy slavery. No time for drop-offs.¡±


    Drosaik looked at her. ¡°But it might only take you a few hours, it¡¯s hardly out of your way at all¡ª¡±


    ¡°Slavery does not wait. How many will die, even as we argue here?¡±


    ¡°So you ally with slave masters to destroy slavery?¡± Drosaik looked at Gontran. ¡°Is that it? Is that your plan?¡±


    ¡°A mission to death,¡± said Hassan Ali. He had cut a black cloth from a dead Venetian, sliced a slit for his eyes, and wrapped the rest around his face. ¡°If you sail north, you shall surely die.¡±


    ¡°Rome is a greater threat than Venice,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°We focus on one foe, allying with others in the mean time.¡±


    ¡°You do not know your true enemy,¡± the Cordoban said. ¡°Rome is weak, while every day the Veneti grow stronger.¡±


    Hassan Ali nodded. ¡°You join with a rampant lion to kill an old ailing dog.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s your opinion,¡± Gontran said. ¡°We have a different perspective. Take it or leave it.¡±


    ¡°We leave it,¡± said Stjepan, who until then had been silent. ¡°All of us.¡±


    Ra¡¯isa stood. ¡°Then will you be our prisoners, too? Our passengers?¡± She gestured to the Paralos. ¡°Is this warship or pleasure cruise?¡±


    ¡°Hang on a minute,¡± Gontran said. ¡°You always like putting things to votes, so let¡¯s put it to a vote with the crew. These guys want to go home. I think we should let them. It could bring about a lot of good will around here. It doesn¡¯t sound like the Venetians are too popular in these parts.¡±


    Ra¡¯isa eyed him. ¡°Democracy works only when it suits you, flower.¡±


    Gontran checked with the rest of the Paralos crew members. Most, at that time, were busy tending their wounds; a few were giving the prisoners water. When Gontran explained the situation with the Venetians¡¯ freed slaves, the crew¡¯s reaction was almost unanimous: drop them off on the Narentine Islands. Visibly amused, Ra¡¯isa had been watching Gontran speak with the crew¡ªwhat he was doing was called canvassing, wasn¡¯t it?¡ªand she smirked and nodded when he told her the results. He had gained leadership XP, in the meantime, and was getting close to leveling up to Intermediate (5/10).


    ¡°These islands are like a hornet¡¯s nest,¡± Capitano Loredan growled. ¡°The Narentini pretend to be fishermen, but they become sharks the moment they are aroused by the scent of blood. They will kill us all, take our ships, and¡ª¡±


    ¡°So they¡¯re Venetians, basically,¡± Gontran said. He looked at Ra¡¯isa. ¡°It¡¯s always projection with these guys. They think they¡¯re angels, meanwhile all the terrible shit they do to the rest of the world, they say the rest of the world is actually doing to them.¡±


    Loredan sat up. ¡°The Rep¨´blega follows rules, laws, regulations. We have an assembly much like that which you utilize aboard this fine vessel of yours, called the Concio in our tongue, in which all citizens choose the doge, the highest and most powerful office in ?a Rep¨´blega de Venesia. We only take the most reasonable, moderate actions. Really, we are more similar than you realize¡ªnot like these barbarians without culture, these thieves.¡± He sneered at the freed slaves.


    ¡°Yeah, I know all about that,¡± Gontran said. ¡°It sounds pretty familiar. The citizens get to choose from a few rich candidates to explain the decisions of the rich to everyone else. That¡¯s how it works, isn¡¯t it? And meanwhile, half the people living in your country are disenfranchised. They either don¡¯t vote, or they can¡¯t vote.¡±


    Why do I always instantly become a Mazdakist the moment I find myself arguing with aristocratic shitheads? Gontran thought. The Mazdakists take things too far¡­all we need is a liberal democracy that doesn¡¯t get corrupt, that has good checks and balances.


    ¡°That¡¯s preposterous,¡± Loredan said. ¡°Anyone is welcome to vote if they wish¡ª¡±


    ¡°Do the slaves vote?¡± Gontran said. ¡°The prisoners? The peasants on these plantations you want so badly? The women? The children?¡±


    Loredan laughed nervously. ¡°Ridiculous. Shall we ask newborn babes their opinion of political matters as well? What about the birds in the trees? The fish in our nets? Shall we pause our process of decision-making to consult the fish?¡±


    ¡°And they only vote once every few years, don¡¯t they?¡± Gontran said. ¡°The real decisions are all made behind the scenes.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s only natural that those men with property, those with the most to lose, should have the greatest interest in the Rep¨´blega¡¯s political affairs. We cannot let the majority tyrannize the rest.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard enough.¡±


    ¡°But they will kill us,¡± Loredan said. ¡°If you bring us to the Narentini¡ª¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll keep you safe,¡± Gontran said. ¡°We need you for our own purposes.¡± He looked to the freed slaves. ¡°That¡¯s the deal. We let you guys go, but you also need to let the Venetians go.¡±


    ¡°I would cut all their throats, given the chance,¡± Drosaik said. ¡°After seeing what such men have done to their fellows.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t do that,¡± Gontran said.


    Drosaik looked to the other freed slaves. After conferring with one another, they nodded their agreement to Gontran.


    ¡°The Narentines cannot be trusted,¡± Loredan said. ¡°They will kill us in our sleep!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well I¡¯m going to kill you while you¡¯re awake if you don¡¯t shut up,¡± Gontran said.


    The Paralos crew was divided among the two ships, which then set sail eastward to the Narentine Islands. The Liona¡¯s crew had wanted to elect Diaresso katapan, but he had refused¡ªperhaps out of modesty¡ªso instead they chose David Halevi the Kitezhi, a man from among their ranks. As they departed, the crews made sure to pull down the Venetian flags on the two vessels, storing them belowdecks. The Paralos still had its red flag, but the Liona sailed behind it with no flag at all. The sailors considered this a bad omen.


    ¡°We should make a new red flag for you.¡± Drosaik eyed the prisoners. ¡°We can use their blood to dye a white sail canvas.¡±


    ¡°No offense, but that¡¯s insane,¡± Gontran said. ¡°And, like, not in a good way. The Venetians might have been bastards, but they never made flags with our blood.¡±


    ¡°Their entire city is built with blood,¡± Drosaik said. ¡°Its walls and rooftops are wrought from the congealed blood of slaves.¡±


    Gontran laughed uneasily, unsure of how to react. Part of him started to wonder if maybe these Narentines were right.


    ¡°Is it true?¡± Gontran whispered to Ra¡¯isa. ¡°Are we wasting our time with these Venetians? Maybe we should be trying to ally with all these other people here.¡±


    ¡°They are weak,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°That is why. Venice works to conquer the world, and what do these Narentines do? They fish, they fight among themselves, they steal what they can from passing ships. They have no vision, no organization. We can be friendly with them, but they are useless to us.¡±


    ¡°Ra¡¯isa¡ª¡±


    ¡°You are more familiar with these parts, are you not?¡± she said. ¡°You traveled and worked in the Adriatic, the Gulf of Venice, with your friend Diaresso for years before coming to Trebizond, is that not so? Tell me, did you ever think of the Narentine pirates?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Not really. I was actually thankful that the Venetians mostly cleaned things up. It made working out here so much easier, at least as long as you played by the Venetians¡¯ rules.¡±


    ¡°You see?¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°You argue for me.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t long before an island was sighted. Sansego, the freed slaves called it¡ªa small northwestern outlier in the Lussino Archipelago¡ªa patch of curving green forest and sand recumbent on the languid blue sea. It had only one small fishing village, an abbey of quiet brick, and a few fishing boats lying on the white beach, but one of these would be enough for the slaves to find their way home. As it turned out, Sansego was even Radoje¡¯s birthplace, which naturally meant that he invited everyone aboard¡ªsave the prisoners¡ªfor dinner in his village. The Trapezuntines and Kitezhi politely declined.


    ¡°You do not want to eat the food on Sansego,¡± Drosaik whispered to Gontran. ¡°It is no good.¡±


    The two ships rowed as close to the beach as they dared, as villagers emerged from their huts of mud and thatch to see what the fuss was about, shading their eyes in the setting sunlight and shouting questions to the sailors in Mediterranean pidgin. A few answered while Gontran and Ra¡¯isa bid the freed slaves farewell, and asked them to put in a good word for the uprising among their countrymen.


    ¡°I will do what I can,¡± Drosaik said. ¡°But you must know, if you succeed in making common cause with Venice, all these islands here will swear themselves your enemies.¡±


    ¡°Well, what are you gonna do?¡± Gontran said.


    They shook hands, and the freed slaves leaped over the side and waded to shore. To Gontran¡¯s surprise, Diaresso was among them. Gontran grabbed Diaresso¡¯s arm before he could go and demanded to know what he was doing.


    Diaresso shook him off. ¡°Touch me again and I shall kill you where you stand, giaour.¡±


    Gontran stepped back. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you? Why are you¡ª¡±


    ¡°I tire of this place. I tire of your folly. There is more to my life than working with you, Gontran.¡±


    ¡°But you don¡¯t even know these people!¡± Gontran cried. Tears were suddenly burning his eyes. ¡°You have no idea how they¡¯ll treat you¡ª¡±


    ¡°At this point, I will take the devil unknown to me, rather than the devil I know too well. Besides, they are going.¡± He nodded to the two Kretan Arabs and the Touareg from Sicily. ¡°I have spoken with them. They have vouched for the honor of the Narentines.¡±


    ¡°Diaresso, you can¡¯t do this.¡±


    ¡°Our partnership is over, giaour. I will not give up my family for you.¡±


    ¡°But Diaresso¡ªyou¡¯re like my brother.¡±


    Diaresso wiped tears from his eyes. ¡°¡®Like¡¯ is the most important word in that sentence. I will choose my true family over those who are ¡®like¡¯ my family. I will choose my true family over those who risk my true family¡¯s lives.¡± He leaped over the side.


    ¡°Diaresso!¡± Gontran shouted. ¡°But what about Tamar?¡±


    ¡°We are no longer lovers,¡± Diaresso said over his shoulder as he waded to shore. ¡°She is strong, and will find another man to care for her, if she even needs one. Besides, she was fond of you, was she not?¡±


    ¡°Diaresso!¡± Gontran shouted.


    Everyone was staring at Gontran. Ra¡¯isa restrained him as he struggled to leap over the side.


    ¡°It is his choice,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Diaresso is not your pet. He is a man.¡±


    Gontran turned away from the freed slaves walking to the beach, where Radoje was already embracing those villagers who were presumably his family members. They were celebrating, leaping and crying out for joy, clearly having never expected to see each other again¡ªwondering even if they were still alive.


    First I lost Joseph. Now I¡¯ve lost Diaresso. By the end of this mission, will I have anything or anyone left?


    ¡°We¡¯ve been together for years,¡± Gontran said. A tear ran down his cheek; Ra¡¯isa wiped it away with one of her long dark elegant tattooed fingers. ¡°Since I came to the Mediterranean, he¡¯s been with me. He¡¯s always been by my side. It¡¯ll never be the same without him.¡±


    ¡°This is his path.¡± Ra¡¯isa looked to the sea. ¡°He has his own way. As for us, we have ours.¡±


    Before long, orders were given to sail north. The crews of the Paralos and the Liona rowed away from the island of Sansego, turning their prows north to Venice, the wooden beams creaking in the wind, the hulls tearing the placid waves.

 6. Highstream

    Night. The number of stars shining in the darkness never ceased to stun Gontran. He had been trapped in this game almost a year, and each clear night left him feeling the same¡ªnot only amazed at the sight of so many galaxies and nebulae, the planets so clear you could almost see their moons and rings, the clouds scarring their atmospheres, the green cat scratches in Venusian skies, the red staring cyclops eye of Jupiter, the sandstorm seasons of Mars. No, it wasn¡¯t only that. The Earth orbited the sun, and not the other way around, and this fact was staring everyone in the Middle Ages in the face, and yet almost none of them even thought about it. Except for a few philosophers who had been dead for centuries, and whose copied manuscripts were being gobbled by worms and moths in the archives of one or two frigid Swabian monasteries, nobody knew. The way medieval people thought about things worked well enough¡ªthe sun and moon were planets, too, in their minds, since planet meant ¡°wanderer,¡± and what did these lights do but wander? You planned the seeding, manuring, weeding, and harvesting by keeping an eye on them every now and then; what they were actually doing didn¡¯t matter. In Gontran¡¯s time, there were cloudless, moonless nights when you couldn¡¯t even see Venus thanks to all the light pollution, yet people there generally knew that the Earth was moving around the sun. All the same, most were too busy to care that they were standing on the surface of spaceship Earth. Gontran didn¡¯t blame them.


    So much is obscured, he thought, looking at the silhouette of Ra¡¯isa leaning over the side of the Paralos in the darkness. She was watching the starlight curve, flash, and bend in the dancing sea. Even when the universe is practically screaming in our faces, we can¡¯t hear.


    For a little while the Paralos and the Liona had stopped, and they were swaying as the Adriatic¡¯s wavelets gently slapped their hulls. The crew ate a quiet dinner in the starlit dark, keeping the torches doused for fear of Venetian warships lurking in the night. The only light aboard was Talia¡¯s two shining blue eyes.


    Food was shared with the prisoners. The Venetian stores in the belly of the Liona were little different from Greek fare, or even the food in Gontran¡¯s hometown of Metz in northern France. Absent the miracle of indigenous cuisine¡ªthe tomatoes, potatoes, squashes, jalape?os, peanuts, avocados, and corn of the New World; plus all the saffron spices of the East¡ªmedieval Christian cooking was bland at best, and often disgusting to Gontran¡¯s tongue. Pickled fish, eel pie, and other nauseating monstrosities were the norm from London to Latakia. Salt was expensive, pepper rare, and sugar almost unheard of. The plainer fare was better¡ªcheese, bread, roasted meat, all washed down with black Trapezuntine wine. Gontran was drinking more of it than ever these days to cope with the stress of being here. And yet as he thought about it, he wouldn¡¯t have it any other way. Fighting for something that mattered wasn¡¯t easy, but it was better than fighting for nothing at all. That¡¯s the way it was back in the old world. Just going through the motions. Living¡ªif it could be called that¡ªthrough a slow-motion zombie apocalypse, one that was taking years to unfold. Never like in the movies. Reality was so much less dramatic, yet at the same time much harder to believe. You felt like you were alone even in the company of your closest friends and family, if you were lucky enough to have those to begin with. Everyone competing with each other in the rat race. What did Buddhists call it? Samsara, the game of life. Moksha meant breaking free from the karmic chains of the past¡ªswelling your muscles, bursting out of the manacles, bending steel like it was soft as butter. It seemed so similar to Mazdakism, what Herakleia wouldn¡¯t shut up about, ¡°the key to not only understanding the world,¡± she said, ¡°but changing it.¡±


    Some Venetian prisoners thanked the Paralos crew for feeding them; others took the food without speaking; the officers refused to eat.


    ¡°Suit yourself,¡± Gontran told them. ¡°We¡¯re almost there. We should be back by tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Might I inquire,¡± Capitano Loredan said, ¡°what is it, exactly, that you intend to do with us?¡±


    ¡°We give some scratches here and there,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Then we give you back to your friends.¡±


    The Venetians¡¯ eyes widened. Gontran and Ra¡¯isa laughed together.


    ¡°Strange to feel so powerless, isn¡¯t it?¡± Gontran said. ¡°In the future, maybe you¡¯ll think twice about enslaving everyone you can get your hands on?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps,¡± Loredan said.


    ¡°He will return to his old ways,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°The instant he goes to Venetian land.¡±


    ¡°And we haven¡¯t even made you work,¡± Gontran said. ¡°All we did was make you sit here.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s been quite painful enough, thank you.¡± Loredan eyed Ra¡¯isa. ¡°And rather terrifying to see a woman like this¡ªif you can even call her a woman¡ªthe way she has quite forgotten her place. You let these women control you¡ªand that is your problem, you see¡ª¡±


    Ra¡¯isa roared and swiped at him like a cat, and Loredan cried out in fear¡ª¡°oh, Jesus Christ, save me!¡±¡ªthough she never actually touched him. Once more, Ra¡¯isa made Gontran laugh. Brother Domenico Malatesta gulped deeply and then crossed himself, his chains ringing with his movements.


    ¡°There¡¯s no use in talking to them, uncle,¡± Annibale said. ¡°They live only to torture us like demons.¡±


    ¡°Yes, very demonic,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Certainly I am.¡±


    ¡°Verily, thus has always been the way of the Saraceni,¡± said Brother Malatesta. ¡°They have always been a blight upon this Earth, a confused mass of dark rabble.¡±


    ¡°We aren¡¯t all Saracens, you know,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°The rest of you are heathens,¡± Malatesta said. ¡°Heathens, schismatics, and apostates, all destined to burn in eternal hellfire.¡± He laughed maniacally at Gontran. ¡°You think you¡¯ve won, heathen, but your torment is just beginning!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± Gontran smirked at Ra¡¯isa.


    Some members of the crew with better eyesight had noticed an orange glow on the horizon. It was too early for sunrise, and besides, the light lay to the north.


    ¡°Venesia,¡± said Agustin Ludovici, one of Annibale¡¯s friends. This was the first word he had spoken since being chained up.


    ¡°Should we attack?¡± Gontran said to Ra¡¯isa. ¡°What do you think?¡±


    ¡°We can surprise them,¡± she said. ¡°They never expect us at night.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s the trouble of navigating the lagoon,¡± Gontran said. ¡°I hear it¡¯s hard enough by daylight.¡±


    ¡°I can see.¡± Talia¡¯s blue eyes suddenly blazed in the dark beside him. ¡°I will guide you.¡±


    ¡°We can head straight for the doge¡¯s palace,¡± Gontran said. ¡°I¡¯ve never been there, but I¡¯ve seen pictures. I might be able to guess where it is. Maybe we¡¯ll be able to talk with the doge when he¡¯s going to bed¡ªor something.¡±


    ¡°You think we will fail,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°You have felt like this since we left Trebizond.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a fool¡¯s errand, the whole thing,¡± Gontran said. ¡°And I¡¯m the biggest fool of all, because I know it, and I don¡¯t have to be here, and yet here I am, helping you out.¡±


    ¡°A fool and a flower at the same time,¡± she said, watching him.


    Ra¡¯isa then came close to him and did something strange, when it was too dark for anyone else to see. Drawing her face close to his, she blew on his lips, and then left before he could say or do anything.


    Butterflies fluttered in Gontran¡¯s stomach. What was that?


    ¡°You may have seen the sun,¡± he suddenly found himself singing in English, ¡°but you ain¡¯t seen it shine!¡±


    ¡°What is this song?¡± Zaynab whispered to Zulaika al-Jariya. ¡°What are these strange words?¡±


    ¡°They come from another world,¡± Zulaika said.


    The officers cleared their plan with the crew, with various members suggesting more details. Once they arrived in Venice, a small team would leave the Paralos to search for the doge. The Paralos, meanwhile, would be kept ready to sail, while the prisoners would be transferred to the Liona. Once the small team returned to the Paralos, it would depart for Trebizond. In the morning, after the Paralos was long gone, the Venetians would find their friends in the Liona.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°They will tell awful stories about us.¡± Zaynab pouted. ¡°How we fed them our own food, gave them clean water, treated them honorably, and made jokes at their expense.¡±


    ¡°The horror,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°It is better than going in there by day,¡± Halevi said. ¡°Most of the crew can stay aboard the Paralos to keep it ready to sail at the first sign of trouble.¡±


    ¡°If only the Narentine called Drosaik were still with us,¡± said Zulaika al-Jariya. ¡°He was the only one among us who has been to Venice, aside from the prisoners. And they will tell us nothing, if we ask them.¡±


    ¡°So a small team will go inside,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Me and the amazons. Talia, you¡¯re going to have to stay here¡ªyou¡¯ll attract too much attention. No offense.¡±


    ¡°I take none,¡± she said.


    ¡°Somehow we get into the doge¡¯s palace,¡± Gontran continued. ¡°We convince him¡ªor the senate, or whatever¡ªto ally with us in exchange for¡ª¡±


    ¡°Trade,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°When we destroy Rome, we let the Venetians trade.¡±


    ¡°And we pay them back for all their losses,¡± Halevi added.


    ¡°They¡¯ll never go for it,¡± Gontran said. ¡°They¡¯re just going to attack us. They already did attack us, remember? Twice! Once in Trebizond, and again, right here! I tried to make friends with these guys.¡± He jutted his head at the Venetian officers. ¡°They wouldn¡¯t listen. Don¡¯t ask me why their bosses would be any different. They¡¯ll probably be worse.¡±


    ¡°We have orders,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°The council gave us.¡±


    ¡°And if we fail, we find allies someplace else,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Sicily, where the Normans will kill us. Pisa, Genoa, Ragusa, and Amalfi, where they¡¯re all too busy killing each other to listen. Either that, or they¡¯re too weak. They¡¯re too terrified of the Venetians and the Normans to do anything outside their little corner of the Mediterranean.¡±


    ¡°There is Fustat,¡± Ra¡¯isa said.


    ¡°As likely to ally with Christians as Christians with Saracens,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°We are not all Christians,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°We could be useful to them.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡± Gontran turned to the crew members and chained prisoners watching him in the darkness, their eyes flickering blue in the light from Talia¡¯s two flames. He found Capitano Loredan. ¡°We¡¯ll take him. He¡¯ll be our hostage and our guide. He should be able to show us straight in to wherever the doge is. You hear that?¡±


    Loredan nodded nervously. Annibale, sitting beside him, rolled his eyes.


    ¡°Once you get us to the doge, we¡¯ll let you go,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Mess around with us, and we¡¯ll cut your throat and kill your son. Is that understood?¡±


    Loredan nodded rapidly. ¡°Yes, yes, of course, anything.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll talk to your fellow Venetians once we set foot in the city,¡± Gontran said. ¡°You¡¯ll tell them what¡¯s going on¡ªand tell them to let us through.¡±


    Loredan nodded again.


    ¡°He is big shot,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°The Veneti will do as he tells them.¡±


    Gontran turned to his crew. ¡°So is that it? Anyone want to add anything else? Is everyone ready to go to Venice?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± a few of them said.


    That was pretty weak, Gontran thought.


    ¡°No one on this ship want to come here,¡± Ra¡¯isa said, standing in front of Gontran. ¡°We never wish violence on these people, these Veneti. Before they come to Trebizond, I never hear of them. I never in my life hear the word ¡®Venice.¡¯ Yet they come to me and make me slave¡ªnot once, but twice. We should fight them. We should kill them for this. After all, what they do to us, they have already done to many more. But we are better. We need their help. We will do something very hard tonight. We will make Venice from an enemy into a friend.¡±


    Another faint cheer.


    ¡°This is first step,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°We make friends with Venice, then attack Konstantinopolis. With Venice fleet, and Trapezuntine-Kitezhi army, the Romans cannot stop us. We will take the great city and rule there. Peasants and workers will take Rome and never let go. There will be no more emperors and no more slave masters. And it all starts here! We will change the world here!¡±


    This time the cheer was louder.


    ¡°We are fast,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°Smart. Strong. And we fight for what is right. We will win. And what we do tonight will make a better world¡ªeven if not all here live to see it.¡±


    ¡°For Trebizond!¡± Gontran shouted.


    ¡°For Trebizond!¡± the crew shouted.


    One by one, they transferred the prisoners to the Liona, leaving only a skeleton crew aboard. Capitano Loredan and Annibale remained on the Paralos. The sails of both ships were unfurled, and the wind filled them.


    ¡°You¡¯ll never get away with this, you dogs!¡± Annibale shouted. ¡°Our friends will kill you all!¡±


    Just then, David Halevi the Kitezhi gagged him. Soon enough, this was the case for every prisoner except Capitano Loredan. Aboard the Liona, the prisoners¡¯ chains were fastened to wooden pillars in the ship¡¯s hold.


    Talia stood at the Paralos¡¯s prow with Capitano Loredan beside her, using her arms to signal instructions to navigate the lagoon. Gontran kept far behind them at the port steering oar, with Ra¡¯isa at the starboard. The Liona was sailing so close to their stern that the bowsprit almost poked Gontran¡¯s back, the ship¡¯s meager crew doing their best to follow the Paralos.


    The orange glow in the night coalesced into little flickering stars on the horizon. These grew into torch flames shining against buildings and islands, the light wavering in the sea in long graceful columns that stretched all the way to the Paralos¡¯s hull. In the faint light Gontran saw Talia raise her right arm, the signal to pilot the ship to starboard. Ra¡¯isa lifted her oar from the waves as Gontran worked his own oar, the Paralos¡¯s dark bowsprit swinging against the fire-illuminated architecture that lay before them.


    Even from this distance, and even at night, Gontran saw that the Venice lying before him was a different city compared to the one he knew from the old world. All its Gothic and Baroque domes, arches, and campaniles had yet to be built. Plenty of houses and towers were present, to be sure, but these looked like they belonged to any medieval castle and village you could find in France. Venice was only unique in that it seemed to float on the water, like the kelp on the Sargasso Sea.


    A floating city, he thought. A city on the water.


    After the Paralos worked its way through the first porto¡ªthe Lido inlet, according to Loredan¡¯s whispered instructions¡ªTalia ordered them hard to port. Gontran lifted his oar, and Ra¡¯isa paddled. Now the wind was blowing against them, so the crew reefed the sails and rowed without a drum, the oars sloshing through the sea, the water dripping from the paddles¡¯ ends making Gontran wince.


    Wanting to see more, he peered into the blackness. At this point Venice was a nightmare of murky shapes looming out of the dark, for there was no moon. When the Paralos swung to starboard once again¡ªnow heading northwest¡ªthey faced the island called Rivoalto, or Highstream, at the lagoon¡¯s heart. Here torch flames flung sparks into the sky, which flitted among the stars like fireflies. At Rivoalto¡¯s core, more buildings were clustered together¡ªthick, heavy, seeming to sink into sludge like old matrons overburdened with pearls. Gontran also made out churches, the larger ones looking like they¡¯d been gouged from Konstantinopolis, hauled across the Balkans, and dropped here, the domes piled atop each other like mushrooms on rotting trees. The sea was also covered with long narrow gondolas, which themselves were loaded with mounds of fruit, fish, and vegetables¡ªnot to mention barrels, casks, boxes, and sacks of who knew what.


    Even at this time, Gontran thought. Must be around midnight.


    Many gondolas carried so many people that they sank into the sea up to the oarlocks, forcing the passengers to bail out the fetid water spilling over the sides. The lagoon was so crowded here that some gondolas were forced to make way for the Paralos and the Liona. Someone on the piazza was plucking a lute in a style that sounded Spanish or even Arabian to Gontran¡¯s old world ears; a show of some sort was also taking place there with the actors wearing white masks.


    Gontran swallowed nervously. Far more people were around than he had expected. As the Paralos approached the mooring posts before the castle at what must have been Saint Mark¡¯s Square, the rowers lifted their oars, and Gontran and Ra¡¯isa guided the ship to the piazza¡ªwhich was a grass field rent by a stream where several apple trees were growing. On every side of the piazza¡ªsave the one facing the sea¡ªrose towers, fortresses, and churches. It was crowded there, too, and the mooring posts were also nearly all taken by empty gondolas. A soldier watching the mooring posts by the piazza strode over to the two dromons¡ªwhich were large compared to most of the other vessels present¡ªand, shaking his head and waving his hands, shouted something in thickly accented Venetian that Gontran was unable to understand, though he could guess at the meaning: ¡°You can¡¯t park that here!¡±


    By then, Gontran was with Loredan at the bowsprit. Talia had hidden herself belowdecks, and the amazons were behind him and keeping out of sight of the piazza, having loaded their miniature basiliks and sheathed their swords at their sides.


    Gontran jabbed Loredan¡¯s back with his pistol-sword. ¡°Make this happen. Get us inside the doge¡¯s palace.¡±


    Loredan cleared his throat. ¡°I am Capitano Loredan returning with part of my war fleet. I must speak with Monsignor el Doge. It is quite the emergency, I assure you.¡±


    ¡°Capitano Loredan.¡± The soldier by the mooring posts bowed. He then added something in Venetian, speaking too quickly for Gontran to understand.


    Loredan answered in even faster Venetian, and spoke with an increasingly angry tone. The soldier bowed once more, then stepped back.


    ¡°Now we go,¡± Loredan whispered to Gontran.


    A plank was lain from the ship to the pier, and Gontran, Loredan, and the amazons descended it. Behind them, the crew had already armed themselves, spreading buckets of water across the deck in case of fire arrows. The skeleton crew on the Liona, meanwhile, climbed aboard the Paralos, leaving only Halevi the Kitezhi behind to keep any nosy Venetians from discovering the prisoners tied up in the ship¡¯s hold. Gontran saw Ibn Ismail flip the Paralos¡¯s hourglass using his one arm.


    ¡°If we don¡¯t get back in half an hour,¡± Gontran had told the crew, ¡°you guys sail out of here, understand? They attack, you leave. Don¡¯t wait for us. You¡¯ll never be able to fight them off.¡±


    The Trapezuntines and Kitezhi had agreed. Halevi was in command, now. Gontran liked him well enough, but he wished that it had been Diaresso.


    Only a few people who were milling about the piazza noticed Gontran, Loredan, and the amazons crossing the grass and the little stone bridge over the stream, with the soldier who had originally tried to stop them now escorting them and even announcing their arrival to the two guards who stood at the gate to the doge¡¯s palace, which was made of iron carved with winged lions rearing on their hind legs and roaring. These guards opened the gate for Loredan and his captors, who entered the palace with what could even be called nonchalance.

 7. The Lower Orders

    After crossing a courtyard of grass and mud, the soldier took a torch from another guard and entered the palace, guiding them along its cold, dark, ornate corridors. They passed Roman statues and mosaics, as well as a giant globe representing the world¡ªits oceans and continents unrecognizable blobs to Gontran¡¯s eyes¡ªin addition to Mediterranean maps in gilded frames mounted to the walls. Even the ceilings were covered with paintings, the floors herringbone brick. Only a few guards were present. Most of these were leaning against their spears when the crew approached; the guards straightened to attention when they heard sandals shuffling on the floor.


    They ascended marble flights of stairs, the bannisters¡¯ shadows shifting on the walls which were covered with golden, cream-colored paintings, the subjects depicted there already trying to escape the weighty Middle Ages so they could soar into the airy clouds of the Renaissance.


    On the top floor were the doge¡¯s apartments. The doors opened as the Paralos crew approached, and an old man with white eyes stood there, watching them with an unusually serene facial expression. Loredan and the guard stopped and bowed on one knee, though the Paralos crew remained standing.


    ¡°Somehow I knew this day was coming,¡± the man who must have been the doge said as the amazons drew their swords and pointed them at the guard, who¡ªglancing back and forth, his mouth wide¡ªraised his hands into the air.


    Everyone entered the apartments. Ra¡¯isa locked the door, Zaynab bound and gagged Loredan and the guard, and Zulaika al-Jariya took the torch and checked the other rooms to ensure that no one was hiding there. The doge found his way to a table in the dining room and sat, gesturing to Gontran¡ªwho had followed him¡ªto do the same. But Gontran remained standing.


    ¡°You should have known better than to think that you could bargain with a Venetian,¡± the doge said. ¡°And not just any Venetian, mind you. I am the Venetian¡ªthe elected leader of the Serenissima.¡±


    ¡°You were at Trebizond, weren¡¯t you?¡± Gontran said. ¡°Herakleia mentioned you. Enrico Ziani.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I met the barbarian queen once or twice,¡± Ziani said. ¡°I was lucky the Concio didn¡¯t sack me for what happened there. They were more understanding than might be supposed. They knew that with any bold actions¡ªand we Zianis are notorious for our boldness¡ªthere comes a certain risk. They are likewise confident that we will soon more than recover our losses.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯re here to talk about.¡± Gontran eyed the amazons. Ra¡¯isa was looking out one of the leaded glass windows to the crowded piazza, Zaynab was watching the two bound prisoners, and Zulaika was keeping an eye on the door. With his merchant¡¯s gaze Gontran noticed that the glass in the windows was of an unusually fine quality¡ªeach pane was worth its weight in golden nomismas.


    He turned back to Ziani. ¡°We have a proposal.¡±


    ¡°Must I hear it?¡± Ziani blinked his milky eyes. ¡°Do I have a choice?¡±


    ¡°We wanted to come here more politely.¡± Gontran turned to Loredan. ¡°But he wouldn¡¯t let us. He stopped our ships in the middle of the Adriatic and enslaved us.¡±


    With wide eyes Loredan grumbled behind his gag, but nobody took it off.


    ¡°It is the Venetian way,¡± Ziani said. ¡°You must understand, my good signore¡ªI didn¡¯t catch your name¡ªwe are at war. And we are also a conservative people. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard of our many rules¡ªhow, for instance, no one is allowed to leave the lagoon without permission, on pain of death. This is to ensure that we retain our work force, on the one hand, and the secrets of our merchants, on the other. The notion of Trebizond¡¯s lower orders freeing themselves, you must understand, it was quite frightening to the leadership here. This is one of many reasons for our joining the crusade against you.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Well, listen. We¡¯re here to tell you that we¡¯re willing to let you do business. Sooner or later, we¡¯re going to take over Rome. When that happens, we¡¯re willing to let your ships come and go and do as much business as you want. We can even make sure you recoup your losses from Trebizond. When we take Konstantinopolis, all the money you need is yours.¡±


    ¡°I suspect I know where this is going,¡± Ziani said.


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    ¡°But we need you to help us first,¡± Gontran said. ¡°We need the Venetian armada to blockade Konstantinopolis while our army besieges the city from the land.¡±


    Ziani laughed. ¡°You know so little about us, my good sir. This city was founded by Romans. They are our ancestors¡ªand have been our allies for a thousand years. Now you wish us to turn against them for a pot of gold?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that what Venice is all about?¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± Ziani said. ¡°But what guarantees can you make that this alliance you propose will be a worthwhile investment? If your project fails, what stops the Romans from taking revenge upon us by allying with our rivals in Genova, Pisa, Amalfi, or Sicily, thereby shutting us out from the eastern trade we rely upon?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a risk,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re just a bunch of banditti, aren¡¯t you?¡± Ziani said. ¡°Last time I checked, there were only a few hundred¡ªmaybe a few thousand of you. We destroyed your home city. You would need hundreds of ships to blockade Constantinopoli from the sea¡ªand an army of at least a hundred thousand to attack from the land, to say nothing of the food required to feed such an army, the supplies and so on. And you know those walls have never been breached, not since Costantino il Grande built them.¡±


    ¡°We have weapons that have never been used against them,¡± Gontran said. ¡°And you know how much wealth is locked up in that place. As much in one church as you¡¯d find in the whole of Venice.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense. It can¡¯t be done.¡±


    ¡°Fortune favors the bold,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Your mistake was to attack Trebizond. We¡¯re stronger than we look, and Rome is weak. You must already know how much they rely on mercenaries to do their fighting for them.¡±


    ¡°We, too, hire mercenaries, finicky as we are about land wars. Regardless, you could never take the city without us.¡±


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll go to Genova,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Pisa. Amalfi. Sicily.¡±


    Ziani laughed. ¡°Even united, they could never hope to fight us. Altogether they have a tenth the ships we do¡ªand less than a tenth the skill at using them.¡±


    Gontran sighed and looked at the amazons. They were growing tense; time was running out. How long had they even been here? It must have been close to half an hour. He turned back to Ziani.


    ¡°What can I say to get you guys to join us?¡±


    Ziani smiled. ¡°There¡¯s nothing you can say. The lower orders are fit for work, not command. Your place is beneath us, not by our side. The mind orders and the body obeys. You are the body and we are the mind.¡±


    Your attempt to convince the doge to ally with Trebizond has failed, the game voice said.


    Even as a Journeyman, my charisma wasn¡¯t enough, Gontran thought.


    Steel boots were clomping along the hallway outside the door. Beyond the windows, the crowds milling about had vanished, replaced by columns of armored soldiers who were marching toward the doge¡¯s palace from several directions.


    Can¡¯t get out that way, Gontran thought.


    He nodded to the amazons, who were watching him. All three of them barricaded the door with Ziani¡¯s gilded couches, chairs, and tables as the soldiers on the other side pounded it and demanded that they open up¡ª¡°in nome della Rep¨´blega!¡±


    Gontran turned to Ziani. ¡°This was all just a distraction, wasn¡¯t it? You were never going to ally with us.¡±


    Ziani pouted. ¡°It was madness to think so.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what I told them. But they never listen to me. Sorry about this, by the way.¡±


    Despite Gontran¡¯s low strength, he picked up the table before Ziani and, with a grunt, hurled it through the window. The beautiful glass exploded and, with the table, fell to the soft courtyard grass and mud below. By now all the soldiers there were gone; they had entered the palace and were stomping and shouting everywhere inside.


    Removing the rope from his bag, Gontran gestured to the amazons. ¡°Come on, that¡¯s it.¡±


    They sheathed their weapons and followed him to the broken window, climbing out carefully onto the ledge outside. Gontran tied the rope to the base of a statue of a nude, bearded, muscular man holding a spear¡ªit must have been Neptune¡ªand flung the other end down to the courtyard. Climbing over to the other side of the statue, he waved to the amazons behind him.


    ¡°You first,¡± he said. ¡°Head straight for the ship. Don¡¯t wait for me.¡±


    ¡°You are no hero,¡± Ra¡¯isa said. ¡°You go first!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to stay here and make sure the statue can hold you,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Now come on!¡±


    Ra¡¯isa was the first to climb down. When she reached the courtyard, she looked back up at the palace for only a moment, then sprinted through the gate and out onto the deserted piazza, running at full speed toward the mooring posts. Zulaika and Zaynab swiftly followed. By then, the Venetian soldiers had burst through Ziani¡¯s barricaded door. They charged through his apartments and screamed at Gontran as he descended the rope. When he was only two stories away from the ground, one soldier climbed out onto the ledge and drew his sword.


    No!


    The soldier cut the rope with one swipe, and Gontran plunged into darkness.

 8. Abbandonato

    Joseph!


    Not so bad to die¡­it means we can be together again¡­


    A man was murmuring prayers in the dark. ¡°Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum¡­¡±


    When he had finished, a woman answered: ¡°Amen.¡±


    The man asked questions in Venetian about a patient¡¯s name, when he had arrived in the hospitale, the cause of his malady. Something was said about the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn as well as the harmful miasmas wafting from the marshes on the nones.


    A fire crackled. People were coughing, and the sound echoed off moist stone walls.


    ¡°What is the patient¡¯s temperament, sister?¡± the man said.


    ¡°Nobody knows, signore,¡± the woman answered. ¡°We tried asking, but he couldn¡¯t answer. He is to Venesia a stranger.¡±


    ¡°A grave case,¡± the man said. ¡°Yet also a simple one. A fall from the doge¡¯s palace, a punishment by God for many sinful transgressions. Yet he is lucky he struck the grass and mud. Otherwise he would have passed long ago.¡±


    ¡°We pray for the Lord¡¯s forgiveness, signore.¡±


    The man laughed. ¡°Better to die, I should think. He must have a sanguine temperament, due to his adventurousness, no? We shall let blood to cool his inner fires, making an incision on the forearm below the elbow.¡±


    Medieval European medicine. Rusted tools. No disinfection.


    Gontran¡¯s stomach twisted. ¡°No,¡± he groaned, turning over in the darkness. ¡°Get away from me.¡±


    Gontran opened his eyes. He was lying on a bed in a dim hall of stone. Many other beds lay against the walls, and people were lying in all of them¡ªsometimes multiple people to a single bed. A fire burned in a brick hearth at the room¡¯s center, the smoke and sparks whirling into a square hole in the ceiling which glowed with cloudy sunlight.


    A bald man in a brown cowl and a nun were leaning over him. Both faces were drawn with concern. They looked to be in their fifties, but Gontran would have been unsurprised to learn that they were half that age.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± Gontran sat up against the wall to keep away from the monk and the nun. ¡°Really. You both did a great job. It¡¯s amazing. I¡¯m cured.¡±


    The monk and the nun looked at each other. Gontran suddenly felt his head pounding. He winced, but resisted the urge to groan and clutch it. At this time, he also noticed that a cold and heavy iron manacle was wrapped around his wrist and chained to his bed. Frantically he felt for his pistol-sword and his hundred and twenty golden nomismas. They were gone. The Venetians had even taken his shoes.


    Fuck!


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s good to hear,¡± the monk said to Gontran. ¡°God is good.¡± He turned to the nun and stood from his seat. ¡°Let me know if the patient¡¯s condition deteriorates. In the mean time, fortify him with the usual mutton and gallon of ale per day.¡±


    ¡°S¨¬, signore.¡± She bowed, then picked up the stool for him as they moved on to the next patient.


    ¡°Wait,¡± Gontran said. ¡°How long have I been here?¡±


    The nun turned. ¡°Only since prime or so. But a few hours.¡±


    ¡°My ship, did it escape?¡± Gontran said.


    The nun glanced at the monk, then looked back to Gontran and whispered: ¡°S¨¬, signore.¡±


    He grinned and pumped his fist. ¡°Yes!¡± As the nun was moving on, he asked her one more question¡ªif he was still in Venice, using the Venetian word for this place: Venesia.


    ¡°Certo che s¨¬,¡± she said.


    Sounds like ¡®claro que s¨ª,¡¯ Gontran thought. His high school Spanish teacher was always saying that¡ªit meant ¡®of course,¡¯ didn¡¯t it?


    Gontran was unsure if he had phrased his questions correctly in the little Italian he knew, and wondered if the nun was just humoring him. He felt confused, like his thoughts were turning into nonsense when he spoke them aloud. The monk and the nun, in the mean time, tended to the next patient, a man who was coughing and hacking so ferociously¡ªlike most of the patients in the stone hall¡ªthat Gontran pulled his sweaty shirt over his nose. Then he examined his manacle and chain. Naturally it was impossible to break free, at least for now.


    Won¡¯t get far dragging a bed behind me through Venice, he thought, eyeing the doorway. He would have needed to prop the bed up on its side in order to have any chance of making it to the next room. Yet the bed was wooden. At night when everyone was asleep, maybe he could saw through the frame with the chain¡ªassuming he was even allowed to stay here. There was no telling when the guards would drag him away. He shuddered to think of where they would take him. Loredan had said something about saline, hadn¡¯t he?  Was that something to do with salt?


    Gontran lay back in his bed. How much time had passed since he¡¯d really slept? A day or two at least. His stamina was still low, and his health was down to 25/100 after that fall. He could have died out there¡­


    On the bright side, the sheets were clean. He¡¯d never gotten used to sleeping in his hammock on the Paralos, but sometimes you were so exhausted you fell asleep wherever you were, regardless of your discomfort. It was nice to be in a bed again, and one softer than Anatolia¡¯s rope beds.


    The memory of Ra¡¯isa blowing on his lips flashed in his mind. He felt her sweet breath on his mouth, and he groaned, clutching his head, which was pounding again. She had probably escaped¡ªthank god¡ªbut he still wanted to be with her. Why had she even blown on him like that in the first place? Was she just drunk on exhaustion, like the rest of them? She was so beautiful. If only they could have been free from all this craziness, in a villa overlooking the sea, with orchards, fields of grain, fishing nets flung into the water, no fear of barbarian invasions. Stability, that¡¯s what he needed. A break from adventure. The chance to lie on a beach all day¡ªfor just one day, without any guilt. Back on that island, what was it called? Sansego.


    Sooner or later, though, he¡¯d be back to dreaming of traveling again, to voyaging to faraway places no one had heard of.


    Can¡¯t help getting into trouble.


    Gontran woke to metal boots stomping the tiled floor. A mountainous weight of drowsiness was crushing him, but it drained away the instant he opened his eyes to the unwelcome sight of Capitano Loredan and Annibale marching toward him with grim expressions on their faces, which they had washed clean. They were also wearing clean black clothing. The father and son were flanked by three armored guards; two were clutching the short swords that were sheathed at their sides; one held a torch. It was amazing how these guards resembled Roman soldiers from Konstantinopolis, complete with crested helmets, scale armor shirts that made them look almost like birds or fish, metal skirts, red undergarments, and even purple capes. They seemed out of place in Venice, too weighty for a city floating on the waves.


    One soldier unlocked the manacle fastened to the bed, then both soldiers seized Gontran and stood him up. Feeling dizzy, he stumbled, but they caught him, swearing loudly enough to wake the other patients, who soon restarted their usual chorus of coughing and retching. The nun from earlier rushed through the doorway and said something about how the patient wasn¡¯t yet ready to leave, but Loredan, Annibale, and the soldiers pushed past her and brought Gontran¡ªbarefoot¡ªthrough dark corridors to the nave of a church, which was attached to the hospitale. Then they dragged him over the pavement and muddy grass outside, shoved him into a boat, and rowed him away. Except for the flaming torch one soldier clutched, the darkness surrounding them was absolute. Vague shapes of curved Venetian houses rose from the gloom, and the fetid lagoon water warped the torchlight as the soldiers rowed. Gontran stared into the canal and contemplated throwing himself inside.


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    ¡°You thought you¡¯d won, Capitano Cane,¡± Annibale said, startling everyone in the boat. Until then he had been watching Gontran almost without blinking. ¡°You were wrong.¡±


    ¡°Be silent,¡± Loredan said.


    ¡°Uncle, I¡ª¡±


    ¡°I said be silent.¡±


    Gontran might have laughed under better circumstances.


    No escape, he thought. Once the Venetian state gets you, they never let you go.


    Aside from their boat, the canal was empty at first, but soon the water grew more crowded with gondolas, rowboats, and even some pinnaces, their sails tucked to their masts. Gontran thought that only Konstantinopolis was so busy after dark; most town and city dwellers went to bed at sunset. Since this could be early in the winter, they would rise again at midnight to putter about their homes before passing out once more for their second sleep, which lasted until sunrise. But Venice was sleepless.


    Crowds murmured and lutes twanged as Piazza San Marco drifted into view, the buildings and nettle trees glowing in the firelight. Gontran noticed how the city was more ornate¡ªmore of a work of art¡ªin the old world. Here in the eleventh century, it was still a lump of matter being shaped into its final form. Aside from the occasional Byzantine church, the houses could have been transplanted from anywhere on the Italian mainland. They were mostly plain cubical structures¡ªmany built of wood¡ªwith rooftops that sloped so far from their walls that they almost met above the narrow streets and canals.


    Their boat was moored to a vacant mooring post, and Gontran was dragged across the square toward the doge¡¯s palace. Everyone stared as the soldiers hauled Gontran inside. Gates and doors were opened and closed by guards, the corridors more brightly lit this time, until Gontran found himself standing barefoot in a large but near-empty chamber before a judge who was sitting behind a raised table that was covered with carved wood on all sides. Dressed in red robes, this elderly man murmured in Latin for a few minutes and then banged his gavel. Capitano Loredan, Annibale, and the soldiers bowed and thanked the judge¡ª¡°grazie, Vostro Onore!¡±¡ªand the judge nodded and waved his hand like it was nothing. Gontran was then dragged along the corridors once again.


    ¡°Now that¡¯s what I call a fair trial,¡± he said.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been declared an enemy of La Rep¨´blega, Capitano Cane,¡± Annibale answered. ¡°Persona non grata.¡±


    ¡°The legal situation was a little complicated, as it were,¡± Loredan said. ¡°Under normal circumstances, if we had captured you abroad, no formalities would have been necessary, you understand. But since you were apprehended in the doge¡¯s palace, virtually in the act of murdering the doge himself¡ª¡±


    ¡°And just as he was in the midst of planning our revenge for Galata,¡± Annibale interrupted.


    Loredan shushed Annibale and glared at him. Then the capitano turned back to Gontran. ¡°The situation was somewhat more complicated. Thankfully, however, the situation has been resolved in our favor. You¡¯ve been remanded to us, to do with as we wish, just as if we had apprehended you ourselves on the high seas.¡±


    ¡°Venetian justice,¡± Gontran said.


    Annibale punched Gontran¡¯s face, lowering his health to 23/100.


    ¡°Do not speak ill of La Rep¨´blega,¡± Annibale said.


    ¡°Why not?¡± Gontran spat blood from his mouth. ¡°What do I have to lose?¡±


    Annibale wound up to punch him again, but Loredan stopped him, then said to Gontran: ¡°A great deal more than you can imagine. Your teeth, for starters.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ve always been a problem,¡± Gontran said. ¡°I had to wear braces for years. I could never get them as white as I wanted.¡±


    Loredan and Annibale looked at each other, confused.


    Gontran was brought one story downstairs, which made it seem as though they had gone beneath the lagoon waters and underground. Through a locked door and then along a dark, dripping tunnel they passed prison cells walled with rusted iron bars. Lying on the dirt floors of these cells were living skeletons coated in filth. They were breathing. Some had rags wrapped around their pelvises; most were nude. The smell was thick, heavy, oppressive, an airless indoor latrine which made Loredan wrinkle his nose. None of the living skeletons stirred as Gontran and his captors entered.


    ¡°Humane,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Silence, fool,¡± Loredan said.


    ¡°You¡¯re lost, Capitano Cane,¡± Annibale said. ¡°Now among the abbandonato.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯ll be no escape for you,¡± Loredan said.


    At the tunnel¡¯s end was a small chamber with a wooden beam stretched from wall to wall. This was only just above their heads, and nearly touching the low ceiling. A rope hung from the beam. The soldiers unchained Gontran, but then tied the rope around his wrists behind his back.


    ¡°You are familiar with this, Capitano Cane?¡± Annibale said. ¡°We call it the strappado.¡±


    ¡°Another amazing innovation from the Republic of Venice,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°If you¡¯ll be so kind as to answer our questions,¡± Loredan said, ¡°there¡¯ll be no need to use it, and we can be on our merry way.¡±


    ¡°Where are we going?¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°You¡¯re much too dangerous to be made into a galley slave,¡± Loredan said. ¡°There we mostly employ workers, you know, and only the most trusted slaves, particularly those who have been promised their freedom in exchange for so many years of service. No, you¡¯ll be sent to le saline.¡±


    ¡°Le saline,¡± Gontran said. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Salt pans,¡± Annibale said. ¡°You¡¯ll be making our table salt for the rest of your miserable life.¡±


    Gontran¡¯s head fell.


    ¡°Whenever we need some flavor on our food, we¡¯ll think of you, to be sure, dear signore,¡± Loredan said. ¡°But you never know. Depending on how cooperative you are, things can proceed more easily. We might even let you buy your freedom¡ªshould you perform your duties adequately.¡±


    ¡°Tell us where your ship is going,¡± Annibale said.


    Gontran spat in his face. ¡°That¡¯s where it¡¯s going.¡±


    Annibale wiped the spit from his face, then grabbed the rope and hoisted Gontran up. The pain made him scream like he had never screamed before. It felt like his arms were being torn from his sockets, though his toes were still touching the floor.


    ¡°I ask again,¡± Annibale said. ¡°Where is your ship¡ª¡±


    ¡°Fuck you,¡± Gontran groaned.


    Annibale hoisted Gontran higher, and he shrieked for all he was worth.


    ¡°We can only do it for a few minutes at most,¡± Loredan said. ¡°Otherwise his arms will never work again.¡±


    ¡°What does it matter?¡± Annibale hoisted Gontran higher. ¡°He¡¯s just a slave.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll be easier for him,¡± Loredan said, ¡°if he dies here. If we let him live, he¡¯ll work for years on the salt marshes.¡±


    Annibale released the rope, dropping Gontran to the filth. The soldiers picked him up by his arms, which exploded again with pain. Gontran groaned. His health had ticked town to 17/100.


    ¡°Listen to me,¡± Loredan said. ¡°When you are willing to cooperate, to answer our questions, we can make things easier for you. We might even release you, in exchange for a vow to never return to the Rep¨´blega, and to never take up arms against us again.¡±


    Bullshit, Gontran wanted to say, but he was unable to speak.


    ¡°Time¡¯s short,¡± Annibale said. ¡°Before you know it, we¡¯ll have captured or destroyed that ship of yours, Capitano Cane. If we don¡¯t kill the crew, we¡¯ll enslave them. And who knows? You might even meet some friends out in the salt pans in the coming days. Perhaps you haven¡¯t seen the last of those beautiful women of yours.¡±


    Gontran was unable to even give the Loredani a dirty look.


    They untied him, chained him again, and dragged him up the stairs, through the palace, out into the square, and then back into the rowboat. Gontran was delirious¡ªshocked from the pain. By then a faint blue light glowed everywhere, and as the soldiers rowed through the morning gloom Gontran saw passing islands, many of which were covered in orchards or farmland rather than buildings. Loredan had left at some point, saying it was past his bedtime; now Gontran was alone with Annibale and the soldiers.


    They rowed away from the islands and toward the marshes of the mainland. At the pier, Gontran was brought to a carriage waiting on a dirt road.


    ¡°Watch out for this one,¡± Annibale said to the driver. ¡°Keep his ankles chained. Under no circumstances are you to remove them.¡±


    The driver nodded and said: ¡°s¨¬, signore.¡±


    Annibale turned to Gontran. ¡°This is where we part ways, at least for the time being, Capitano Cane. Know only that I¡¯ll be out there on the sea hunting for your ship¡ªand that I¡¯ll do my best to take your compagni alive, that they might enjoy all the pleasures of Venesia. Know also that every day you work on il saline, you¡¯ll be working for me. Making me richer¡ªand you poorer, your life wasting away as I live my own to the fullest. What¡¯s that? I think I feel a poem coming on. Your blood will drain into my veins, until nothing of you remains.¡± He laughed.


    Gontran was unable to lift his head. He barely heard Annibale.


    Annibale stepped back and nodded to the driver, who whipped the draft horses¡¯s reins. The carriage lurched forward, and Gontran slammed onto the floor. Annibale laughed with the guards.


    ¡°You¡¯re off to a great start, Capitano Cane!¡± he shouted.

 9. Le Saline

    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¡ªthese 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¡ªif ¡®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¡ªnamed Zuan Boscolo¡ªto 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 ¨¨ 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¡ªwith the maestri¡¯s hounds baying behind him while, up ahead, vipers slithered in the marshes¡ªit 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¡ªit 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¡ªdespite the evening cold¡ªand 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¡ªwhatever they were called¡ªseemed 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¡ªwhole galaxies speckled the gap¡ªand 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¡ªtelling 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¡ªa raving madman wearing a few different coatings of mud, and nothing else¡ªbut 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¡ªbut 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¡ªany 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¡ªrightfully¡ªabout 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¡ª


    ¡°Mezzogiorno!¡± Boscolo shouted from the shade. ¡°Pranzo!¡±

 10. Shit Ass

    Together with Gontran, the slaves returned to the barn, dropped off their tools, and sat on the ground in the shade of an oak, where a peasant woman had lain out loaves of bread on a cloth, and poured them each a huge cup of ale. The slaves ate and drank ravenously. Even the bread here was different from in the old world¡ªone bite could distend your stomach¡ªbut Gontran tore into his food, not only because he was bent over from hunger, but also because he feared the other slaves would steal it. His stamina was slightly replenished, and his health recovered a little to 20/100. Yesterday evening had been so dark that he was unsure of which slave had taken his blanket. They all looked the same. Each was a thin, strong, sweaty young Slav in need of a trim for his beard and hair and a bath for his dirty limbs.


    Everyone was too hungry to speak. Gontran heard only smacking lips, chewing teeth, and slurping mouths, though he was so hungry he barely paid attention to anything save his own food and drink.


    Bread, he thought. Ale.


    The meal vanished in minutes. Now Gontran needed to use the bathroom.


    He stood to his feet and stumbled, surprised by how the ale had gone to his head. It was stronger than most old world beer¡ªand in his old body, he¡¯d never been a heavy drinker, only sipping from red plastic cups at the occasional party to keep up appearances¡ªbut he¡¯d also stood up too quickly, and without enough breath in his lungs. To avoid falling, he grabbed the oak trunk and gripped it almost as though he was holding a mast in the midst of a storm and struggling to keep from being blown out to sea. His brain was so oxygen-deprived that his vision and hearing suddenly became cinematic, like in an old, cheap unsolved murder mystery show. The eating sounds around him grew choppy, and the film of his life which he viewed through his eyes seemed to seize up, start again, then seize up again. He was amazed by this experience¡ªso this was why those crappy shows were like that¡ªbut he also wondered if and when it would end. Thankfully it cleared up after he took a few breaths. No one else had noticed. They were finishing their meals, chewing and burping, stunned by the odd lavishness of the bread and ale after hours of work.


    Gontran asked Boscolo about the bathroom, using the only Italian word he knew for it¡ªbagno, bath¡ªwhich the maestro failed to understand. Then Gontran clutched his stomach, and Boscolo pointed at him and laughed, said something to the Slavs¡ªwho also laughed, all except for one, who looked at Gontran with pity¡ªand then gestured to an outhouse in the woods that had been out of sight. Closing the door behind him, Gontran sat on the wooden bench inside, pulled down his undergarments, and voided the contents of his stomach into a dark hole which reeked of filth. It must have been deep, for it took a disturbingly long time¡ªseveral seconds at least¡ªto hear his shit smack the bottom. This induced a dizzying feeling which was compounded by his drunkenness.


    Were medieval people just kind of drunk all the time? he wondered.


    He needed to be careful, drinking that ale. Water would have been better, but water from around the marshes was dangerous, and shit from latrines could seep into well water. Being here more than a few days would make him an alcoholic.


    Next, his problem was cleaning his ass. There was no toilet paper, nor was there a hose or bidet. What to do? He couldn¡¯t go back out there with shit all over his ass. People here could be dirty, but they weren¡¯t that dirty.


    He looked around the dark outhouse, searching the same wooden walls over and over for salvation, but there was nothing.


    How do I clean my ass?


    Finally, he decided he would peek through the door, make sure no one was looking, then sneak outside, keeping his tunic and undergarments from touching his ass all the while. He could make it into the woods, find some leaves, hope they weren¡¯t poison ivy or poison oak¡ªdid that even grow here?¡ªand clean himself¡ª


    Someone pounded the door and growled a few Slavic words.


    Gontran swore. But then he had an idea, and said: ¡°Hey, could you get me some leaves or something?¡±


    The answer came in Slavic, and sounded negative, repeating words with which Gontran was familiar¡ªnyet and neechayvo. Gontran wondered if Slavic language speakers just said neechayvo all the time, or if he only noticed this because it was one of the three or four words he knew from those languages.


    The pounding came again. Gontran got up, opened the door, and did his best to sneak outside without showing anyone his bare ass. But the other slave noticed immediately, of course, and pointed at him and laughed like Boscolo.


    You are losing charisma XP, the game voice said.


    The slaves and their maestro¡ªsitting together on the blanket in the shade like a happy picnicking family¡ªroared with laughter, except for the one slave who felt sorry for Gontran. He shook his head and crept into the woods, noticing that, as that first slave entered the outhouse, he was carrying a handful of leaves.


    Gontran found some fresh leaves¡ªfearful of using old ones¡ªand, to make sure they wouldn¡¯t leave a rash on his ass, he rubbed one on the underside of his forearm, then waited a moment. When nothing happened, he shrugged, cleaned himself, then tossed the dirty leaves under a nearby bush.


    Taking a shit in the Middle Ages is complicated, he thought. In some ways he still had yet to get used to this time and place. There was also nowhere to wash his hands.


    Pulling up his undergarments, he noticed that he was alone, and that he was out of sight of the slaves and Boscolo. He couldn¡¯t even hear them; he must have gone farther into the forest than he¡¯d realized, shuffling out here with his pants around his knees. His high stealth skill as a Master Thief (8/10) must have helped. Looking around into the bushes and leafy trees rushing in the cool spring wind and sun, he thought immediately of escape. But where could he go? And what would Boscolo or the Loredani do if they caught him?


    Gontran looked down at the manacles around his ankles. He¡¯d never make it wearing those things. And he couldn¡¯t take them off. His stealth skills weren¡¯t high enough to remove iron manacles with nothing but his bare hands and some twigs. Someone would find him, assume he was an escaped slave, and turn him in for a reward. But what if Gontran only traveled by night? Then he wouldn¡¯t be able to see! And he would still need to steal food now and then. Without being able to run, he would never make it. He needed speed, not just stealth. Maybe he could find a blacksmith who would remove the manacles. That was a big maybe¡­and why should anyone risk their life to help?


    While Gontran was stressing over what to do, he heard raised voices, and what sounded like people calling: ¡°Capitano Cane!¡± He hated that nickname, but Annibale must have told them to call him that. Sighing, he crept out of the woods, waved to Boscolo, and rejoined the slaves just as they were returning to the salt pans. Now Boscolo and his three cronies called him ¡°culo di merda¡±¡ªshit ass¡ªin addition to Capitano Cane.


    Boscolo fell back onto his stool in the shade. There he sucked down a mouthful of wine, every now and then, from his wine skin. The slaves continued raking salt while Gontran shoveled it. This time, however, one slave spoke with him as they worked, introducing himself as Istv¨¢n.


    ¡°Are you the one who took my blanket?¡± Gontran blurted, though he recognized at the same time that Istv¨¢n was the slave who had pitied him earlier.


    ¡°No,¡± Istv¨¢n said with his thick accent. ¡°Sorry. That B¨¦la K¨¢roly.¡± He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at a slave who was indistinguishable from the rest¡ªa thin white man, of indeterminate age, dirty and tired-looking, with taut muscles, and brown hair in need of a trim. ¡°He nobleman, but the family make no ransom.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°He is not nice.¡±


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°No.¡± Gontran smiled. ¡°He definitely isn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°You sound Frankish.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±


    ¡°Are you truly the ship captain?¡± Istv¨¢n said after a moment.


    Gontran nodded. ¡°I was. My name¡¯s Gontran Koraki.¡±


    ¡°Where is crew?¡±


    ¡°I think they escaped.¡±


    Istv¨¢n laughed. ¡°Not for long. No one escape Velence when they want you. Look at us.¡± He gestured to the closer slaves, but also to the others in the distance who were raking the salt pans under the maestri¡¯s watchful eyes. ¡°Long ago, we think: ¡®Yes, aha, I escaped.¡¯ But Velence wants us. And so they catch us like the fish in big net.¡±


    ¡°Could be worse.¡± Gontran looked to the sunny sky and the haze billowing through the marsh, rippling in the lagoon water. ¡°Is it always like this?¡±


    Istv¨¢n shook his head. ¡°In summer is bad. Very hot. Like the furnace, all day long. People die. And water.¡± He pointed to his bare feet, soaking in the salt pan. ¡°It hurts skin. Blisters. Gives disease. You need remove those.¡± He nodded to Gontran¡¯s manacles.


    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± Gontran said. ¡°I¡¯m a flight risk.¡±


    ¡°You keep them, you die, one week. First comes cut, then sick, then death. It spread fast. You must remove.¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Be nice to Boscolo.¡± Istv¨¢n smiled in a peculiar charming manner. ¡°Ask permesso.¡±


    They both returned to work, keeping an eye on Boscolo, though from a distance it looked like their maestro had again fallen asleep in the shade, his whip slipping from his fingers, his sword at his side.


    Prison guards are fundamentally disadvantaged compared to prisoners, Herakleia had once said during one of her endless lectures. The prison guard is bored and tired, he wants to be anywhere else, sometimes he even empathizes with his prisoners, and he is certainly less clever than they are¡ªsince he can see that there is no logic to the law save that of power, and he understands that the criminals who run society are making far more money than he can ever dream of, yet he fails to take advantage of this because he has been transformed into a coward thanks to decades of parental and societal abuse and neglect. In a fair fight, the prisoner will almost always overcome the prison guard. Every prisoner also possesses a nobility which the prison guard can never have. Despite the inevitable empathy, the prison guard cannot help viewing the prisoner as a fool for being captured. The prison guard thinks him lazy and worthless. This makes the prison guard lose his edge. He becomes careless. He assumes that the prisoner can never escape. And then in contrast to the bored, tired, and cowardly prison guard, the prisoner is obsessed with the idea of escape. For years he can think of nothing else. Ceaselessly he works toward this goal mentally, physically¡ªexercising, reading, planning, organizing¡ªall while the prison guard alternately envies him or thinks him lazy and stupid¡ªunable to see him for who he really is. This is why the liberation of the world¡¯s exploited peoples is inevitable. The world is a vast prison, but no prison is perfect. There is always a way out.


    With the bread and beer in Gontran¡¯s stomach, his thoughts drifted. He felt oddly content, and wondered how bad staying here would be once he got his manacles off. Then he rebuked himself for thinking that way. He was Gontran Koraki, the rogue adventuring merchant, and no one controlled his fate.


    Sooner or later he would fool these Venetians, who thought they were so smart. He would never lose sight of his goal. He would break free.


    His odd contentedness was brief. Soon it was replaced with fatigue, boredom, frustration. For a little while, having no control over his life had almost seemed nice, since no control meant no worry.


    It¡¯s all out of your hands, so why trouble yourself?


    So far slavery here could have been worse, at least compared with what he had read in the old world about the antebellum south, where being whipped, raped, mutilated, worked to death, bred like cattle, and separated from your family was an everyday occurrence. Gontran had only been in Venice a few days, but he had yet to see anything like that here. Slavery was different in the past. Slaves could even command armies and rule empires. Wasn¡¯t the vizier of Fustat a slave¡­?


    But freedom had its own frustrations¡ªthe struggle, for one, to figure out what to do when you weren¡¯t enslaved by need. Poverty itself was a different kind of slavery. But still, having some control¡ªor at least the illusion of control¡ªwas always better than no control at all.


    Gontran¡¯s growing exhaustion soon turned to anger. This was directed against the slaves that had mistreated him, to Boscolo who had chained him and who napped all day in the shade of the leafy trees like a figure in a Renaissance landscape painting. Then there was Venice, the Loredani, and also himself.


    If only I hadn¡¯t fallen off that ledge.


    Had Gontran escaped the doge¡¯s palace, he would now be adventuring across the sea with Ra¡¯isa by his side. More than anything, he longed to touch her. The thought almost made him cry as he shoveled salt in the Venetian lagoon that reeked of rotting fish, bubbling clams, and bird shit. He had never gotten a chance to touch her smooth, electric skin. And if they were ever reunited, what would he look like? After just a few months or years of slavery, Gontran would be unrecognizable. His teeth would fall out. He¡¯d be little better than the living skeletons he¡¯d seen in the Venetian dungeons.


    By now the Paralos must have gone to another city and tried to forge an alliance again. The Republic of Ragusa was closest. This old nest of the Narentine pirates was not yet ensnared in Venice¡¯s tentacles, and also just a day or two away in Dalmatia, as long as the wind was at your back. Then there were Amalfi, Pisa, Genova¡ªall on Italy¡¯s far side, sheltered from Venetian depredations by the land, always happy to take up arms against the Serenissima.


    There were so many places for the Paralos to go, so much for the crew to do. The Roman Empire and their Mediterranean hangers-on¡ªthe Normans and Venetians¡ªhad made so many enemies that uniting different powers against them was far from hopeless.


    Now, shoveling thick fat gleaming salt crystals in the marshes, Gontran grumbled swears, gritting his teeth and growling. Grumbling to yourself¡ªwasn¡¯t that something people only did in movies?


    Guess not.


    In the evening, Boscolo and the slaves returned to the Isola del Buon Castello, and had their bread with a little salted pork and wine. Once they had finished eating and drinking, and everyone was sitting back and burping, Gontran knelt before Boscolo, but before he could even ask for his manacles to be removed¡ªbefore he could explain that Annibale probably wanted him to live a long life as a miserable slave¡ªthe maestro struck him across the face with his whip and bellowed a torrent of swears. With his health dropping to 19/100, Gontran backed away and apologized. Boscolo, his breath reeking of wine, his sword clanging against his leg, brought Gontran to the dormitory and threw him against the wall.


    ¡°Culo di merda,¡± Boscolo growled.


    He staggered back to dinner, though he had forgotten to chain Gontran to the wall.


    Gontran sat his weary, aching body against the cold dark wall, doing his best to make it look as though he was chained against it. Had Istv¨¢n lied in some Machiavellian attempt to get rid of him? Machiavelli himself would one day live not far from here. Northern Italy was the land of Machiavelli, wasn¡¯t it?


    No, what Istv¨¢n had said made sense. The manacles around Gontran¡¯s ankles were time bombs. When an infection began, nothing would stop it. Amputation would follow, and there were few if any anesthetics available. If Gontran got lucky and found a barber-surgeon, the man would saw through his bone¡ªand need several other men to hold him down. The unsterilized saw would poison his blood, and death would follow.


    Trebizond had started producing small amounts of antibiotics for only the most desperate cases. Culturing the fungi was a complicated, labor-intensive process in the absence of scientific knowledge and equipment. It required modern factories. Then you needed to take a lot of penicillin for it to work, and it needed to be ingested as a pill, because if you just ate the blue mold on cheese, your stomach acid would destroy it before the fungi could get into your bloodstream.


    In short, his prospects were poor. The manacles were a death sentence.


    Beyond Trebizond, antibiotics were unknown. Gontran was going to die here if he couldn¡¯t break free. There were no tools to saw through the manacles. Was he supposed to gnaw them with his teeth, or cut them with his nails? Of course not! He needed to strike when Boscolo came to unchain him in the morning. It wouldn¡¯t be hard to choke him to death¡ªRa¡¯isa had almost done the same to Annibale.


    She should have finished him off.


    Then Gontran could take Boscolo¡¯s key and break free. But how would the other slaves react? Istv¨¢n might leave him alone, at least, but what about B¨¦la the blanket thief, and the other two slaves who had never missed a chance to laugh at him?


    They can rot here for all I care.


    Then the eternal question returned: where would Gontran go? Should he walk all the way back to Trebizond? But that must have been thousands of miles, and it took him straight through Konstantinopolis, where agents belonging to both the emperor and Demetrios Male?nos would be looking for him.


    Everyone was always looking for Gontran. Everyone was always hunting him. He was like a rabbit in a forest full of wolves.


    It didn¡¯t matter. If he broke free, he might live. If he stayed here, he would die soon. More than anything he wanted another chance to kill Annibale, but Gontran would have to settle for escape. Besides, when the Venetian golden boy got wind of what had happened, he would be furious. Too bad Gontran wouldn¡¯t be there to see it.


    Exhaustion took him, and he slept despite the cold, his hands tucked into his armpits again. In the morning, when Boscolo entered the dormitory to unchain him from the wall, Gontran seized his chance.

 11. Via Imperii

    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¡ªthe 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¡ªthinking 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¡ªit was B¨¦la the blanket thief¡ªstood 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. Istv¨¢n 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¡ª¡±


    Someone was shouting in the distance. Dogs were baying.


    He was running to get help.


    Gontran picked up one of B¨¦la¡¯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 Istv¨¢n.


    ¡°Change of heart?¡± Gontran gasped.


    Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n¡¯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¡ªit was still cloudy and dim¡ªriding 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 Istv¨¢n. Instead, he tapped his shoulder, then pointed to the wooded marshland.


    Istv¨¢n 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, Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n slowed down. This would either make the horsemen give up or dismount. Nothing would stop the dogs, however¡ªsave 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 m¨ºl¨¦e 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 Istv¨¢n¡¯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¡ªcovered in blood, as though soaked in red paint¡ªlurched toward the mastiff. It growled at him while still holding Istv¨¢n¡¯s ankle in its jaws, which were foaming with blood and saliva. Istv¨¢n kicked its head; the mastiff bit him harder, making Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n, and attacked Gontran¡ªwho pinned its neck to the ground with his leg. There, just as with Boscolo, Gontran withdrew the sword, stabbed, then withdrew it again¡ªrepeating this until the dog stopped breathing. At this point, he leveled up to Apprentice with m¨ºl¨ºe weapons (4/10).


    Getting the hang of this, Gontran thought.


    He fell off the monster, exhausted beyond belief, but Istv¨¢n helped him up, thanking him as they limped together through the woods¡ªcovered 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.


    Istv¨¢n 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¡ªeverything except mountain¡ªall 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 Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n¡¯s ankle. Pulling the blanket from his pocket, Gontran tore a strip away and bandaged the wound. Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n to get his attention, then mouthed the words: ¡°Where are we?¡±


    Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n 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.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    No cure for malaria in this period, Gontran thought. No medicine.


    An enormous brown scaly snake slithered over Gontran¡¯s legs, then Istv¨¢n¡¯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 Istv¨¢n 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 B¨¦la 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 Magyarors¨¢g.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it? You need permission to leave?¡±


    ¡°Murano glass is secret. Venice has many secret. He is lucky to live¡ªmore 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.¡± Istv¨¢n sighed. ¡°I have very long sentence.¡±


    ¡°What for?¡±


    ¡°Someone tell I want to sell trade secrets to other cities.¡±


    ¡°Well? Did you?¡±


    Istv¨¢n 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¡ªwith 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 Istv¨¢n 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¡ªit was either the March of Verona or Friuli, Gontran was unsure¡ªwas well-watered. Rivers, streams, and ponds were everywhere. With almost every other step, Gontran¡¯s bare feet sank into mud. He and Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n stopped him. In the distance, above the green wavering stalks¡ªtall for so early in the season¡ªwas 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 Istv¨¢n spotted it, he pulled Gontran down in terror.


    ¡°Faszom!¡± Istv¨¢n said. This was apparently a swear.


    ¡°Look familiar?¡± Gontran whispered.


    ¡°It Monselice,¡± Istv¨¢n 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?¡±


    Istv¨¢n shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know. This is not Venetian land. Now we are in N¨¦metorsz¨¢g¡ªGerman Roman Empire land.¡±


    ¡°Jesus, how many Romes are there? One was enough.¡±


    Istv¨¢n 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.¡± Istv¨¢n 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?¡± Istv¨¢n said. ¡°North to Germany?¡±


    ¡°No idea. Just trying to get away from the Venetians at the moment.¡±


    ¡°Many people feel same these days.¡± Istv¨¢n 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¡ªMagyarors¨¢g. I think you call it Hungary.¡±


    ¡°Hungary.¡± Gontran nodded. But he was drawing a blank.


    What¡¯s Hungary? A country with a funny name¡ªeveryone 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¡ªmarrying 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¡ªfunny 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¡ªan abusive dad, a coddling mom¡ªin 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¡ªbut 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¡ªthe 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¡ªparticularly behind them as they gallop away from you, luring you into a false retreat. A few old Roman fortresses built in the¡ª


    ¡°Gontran,¡± Istv¨¢n 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.¡±


    Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n 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,¡± Istv¨¢n 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 Istv¨¢n crept closer, they heard music¡ªfifes, drums, lutes, singing. Church was over¡ªif the villagers had even gone to church¡ªand now groups of people were heading into the countryside to picnic. Thankfully, they were headed in the opposite direction from Gontran and Istv¨¢n.


    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 Istv¨¢n 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, Istv¨¢n pulled him back. ¡°Dogs,¡± he mouthed, glancing at his wounded ankle.


    Gontran shoved Istv¨¢n 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?¡±


    Istv¨¢n had no answer, so Gontran stood and entered the village.

 12. Larder

    Gontran crept along the outer walls of the huts in silence. He kept an eye on the narrow, shadowy gaps between the buildings, thinking he¡¯d hide there if anyone spotted him. Wooden carts were also parked in front of some homes, and he was soon planning his movements around these carts¡ªlunging from cart to cart with the intention of ducking down behind one if a dog barked, or if someone suddenly asked: ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± But his high stealth skill kept him concealed.


    At one point he found a well, and guzzled cool fresh water from the bucket he hauled out of the depths. He felt so gross¡ªhis skin was caked in dirt and salt from a day of running for his life¡ªthat he wanted to take off his clothes and bathe right there. He would have done so, had circumstances been less hostile. All he could do was quietly rinse his face.


    Gontran moved toward the town center. He meant to steal some food from the church. As he drew closer, he looked back to the gnarled oak where he had left Istv¨¢n, but only saw darkness.


    His heart plunged. Had Istv¨¢n left?


    He¡¯ll betray me, Gontran thought. Turn me in for the reward. That¡¯s the real reason he came with me. Machiavelli. Just building me up so he can let me down. The Venetians will pay him and even free him in exchange for torturing me like this. Nothing hurts a man more than hope. That¡¯s what Annibale wants. Make me think I¡¯ve made it. Then, the moment I¡¯m celebrating¡ªcatch me again.


    You¡¯ve become a little more paranoid since your imprisonment, the game voice said.


    Shut up.


    Gontran arrived at the piazza that was in front of the church. For a moment he checked to see if anyone was around, but no one seemed to be. Here were richer homes of wood and stone, two or even three stories high with windows of thick smudged glass which¡ªwho knew?¡ªIstv¨¢n or B¨¦la may have even made back in Murano. These were open to the cool humid spring night. The snoring of smug, self-satisfied burghers rattled their windowpanes. Like Annibale, none of them had ever missed a meal. None of them needed to worry about running for their lives or getting chained up or whipped. Regardless of what happened, tomorrow was going to be another wonderful day for all of them. Gontran could tell from their snoring alone that their sleep was deep and dreamless, since they had no need to dream. For them, reality was the dream. It was a living dream. And they didn¡¯t want to wake up.


    Taking a deep breath, Gontran snuck along the buildings facing the square until he was as close to the church as he could get without exposing himself in the open. Looking back and forth one last time, he darted across the piazza to the church entrance, his feet squishing in the wet muck¡ªchurned into buttery softness for who knew how long by rain, sweat, and innumerable wheels, shoes, paws, and hooves. Once he arrived, he tried the door, but it was locked.


    Fuck! House of God my ass!


    Before he knew what he was doing, he was checking his pockets for anything he could use to pick the lock¡ªhe was a rogue, after all, and a Master Thief (8/10) with a corresponding Master Lockpicking Skill (8/10)¡ªbut all he was carrying was a sword. Then he peered into the darkness. He needed two metal pins. Where the hell was he going to find two metal pins in the middle of the night in Monselice? Nowhere!


    What about sticks or twigs? No! They''ll snap!


    He tiptoed around the church, found a rear entrance, tried it. Locked. The priest, the father, the abb¨¦, the padre, whatever you wanted to call him¡ªit seemed he had some experience with thieves, and perhaps even his own fair share of escaped slaves. They must have been coming through here all the time. Venice was the slave capital of the world. Some slaves inevitably got loose.


    Now Gontran was really starving. The game voice said his hunger had gotten bad enough to affect his health. There was a vegetable garden in the rear, and he fell upon it, but it was spring, and the seeds had yet to sprout from the earth. They were still germinating. Gontran swore silently.


    Yet aside from the tower¡ªprobably guarded by at least a few burly knights, bristling with razor-sharp swords and armor¡ªthe church must have contained the most food in the village, especially if there was a monastery attached, even a small one with only a few fat monks tucked inside, safe and snug in their warm beds, snoring through dreams of Jesus on the Cross, God the Father in the clouds, and the heartwarmingly amusing antics of Brother Francesco and Brother Leonardo.


    Wait. They didn''t dream about those things. They dreamed stress dreams about messing up monastic duties, chanting the wrong words during mass, ripping an uncontrollably deafening (plate-rattling) fart during an otherwise quiet dinner, arriving for confession naked, or failing to love god hard enough. Those were monk stress dreams. But the larder must have been stuffed with sacks of communion wafers and barrels of communion wine at the very least.


    Mmm, the body and blood of Christ.


    Gontran tried the doors of the other houses of the rich, but all were locked. No wonder even the dogs were asleep. There was nothing to worry about. The doors and locks were strong. It would take a band of at least five, ten, maybe even twenty guys to break into one of these places.


    Gontran heaved his shoulders. He was out of ideas. As he thought about what to do, he realized that the peasants¡¯ houses were probably unlocked. Peasants lacked even the money to brace their doors with anything but big stones on the ground, if that. They also lacked anything that was worth stealing. But although Gontran was ravenous, he had yet to reach the point where he would take bread from the mouths of destitute people¡ªwhom the lords and ladies and priests had already bled to dry husks.


    Out of options, he crept back to the oak in defeat. What the hell was he going to do now? Gontran was starving! He¡¯d been running, hiking, and fighting since early in the morning without even a breadcrumb! Yet along the way back to the oak, he spotted a blacksmith¡¯s shop he''d somehow missed. Listening and looking around, he snuck closer. It was so dark he could barely see, but he felt around for anything he could use to pick a lock, careful at the same time to avoid cutting himself on sharp objects. The blacksmith and his assistants had locked away anything of value, but a couple of nails might be all Gontran needed. These would be thick and heavy¡ªlike the nails driven into the flesh of Our Lord on the cross¡ªbut medieval locks were also correspondingly large. Two relatively thin nails might do the trick.


    Slowly reaching into a bucket, Gontran found that it was full of nails. Jackpot! He stuffed two of the thinnest he could find into his pocket, then returned to the church. Within moments, the door lock was open, and his lockpicking XP had increased.


    Piece of cake.


    It creaked as he opened it, snuck in, then closed it. Once inside, he shoved the nails back into his pocket, as cold darkness enveloped him. The building was no Renaissance masterpiece¡ªthe Renaissance lay two centuries in the future. Instead, the church was a plain brick structure with a bell tower, and no windows. Its architecture was probably Byzantine-esque, but Gontran couldn¡¯t tell. Forced to feel about in the dark, he worked his way toward the altar, stepping carefully, pausing constantly to listen. Nothing. Even his own dirty footsteps were silent to him.


    Once he reached the altar, he got confused. Never much of a churchgoer, he lacked knowledge of basic church design. He knew that there were things around the altar¡ªstructures which were used in various ceremonies, for the choir to sing, and the priest to swing the smoking censer about, chanting quietly about nostrae pater quid est in caelio, amen. Doorways opened to other rooms here and there, but as to their name or purpose, he was clueless.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Where do these assholes store their food? They have to eat sometimes, don''t they?


    It was in the ciborium, wasn''t it? The tabernacle? Didn¡¯t ciborium mean dinner or something in Latin? It was at the back of the altar, in the center, a big metal container where they stored the consecrated wafers and wine. Maybe. Gontran did his best to find his way there, but he also needed to keep his bearings and avoid getting lost. Presumably he could find a wall and then use that to guide him back to the entrance, but who knew?


    When he arrived at the back of the altar, he found it: a sort of ornate metal barrel, its insides sloshing with wine, with a drawer for the communion wafers on the bottom. He was ready to stuff himself to bursting with holy bread and drink himself halfway to death with holy wine. It was a sacrilege, and God would never forgive him, but fuck that guy.


    There was just one problem. The container, also, was locked.


    Fuck! Everything is locked in this fucking place! Monselice! More like Mon-se-locked-e!


    Clutching his head, he was ready to smash the metal container onto the floor. Then the whole village would hear, and they¡¯d all come and attack him like sprites in a video game. His lockpicking skills were also useless, here: the local father had splurged on a nice new lock that was too small for the big nails Gontran had plucked from the blacksmith¡¯s.


    He stumbled into a room adjoining the altar. Here with his hands he found plain wooden tables and chairs, some parchments, a thick book which was probably a bible; he also felt robes hanging along the walls. But no bread. No wine.


    Cursing the church, God, Christianity, Jesus, and everything within and without the universe, Gontran left the dark building in defeat.


    Monselice, the world¡¯s shittiest little town. Monselice: a slice of the Hell of the Damned. Of leeches. A food desert.


    Once he was outside, he noticed that the clouds had cleared a little in the night, and that the promontory and the tower appeared as dark shapes obscuring the stars.


    That was his last choice. There must have been food in the tower. It was locked, to be sure, but that was no problem for him. The only issue was climbing up and down the mountain at night without falling, tearing up his feet, breaking his ankle, or getting stabbed through the chest by Signore Roderigo Dickfacio de Monselice.


    Suppressing a groan from the hunger that was threatening to turn his stomach inside-out, Gontran found the path that led up the mountain. The starlight made the climb easier then he¡¯d expected¡ªuntil he realized that the stars were actually getting a little too bright. It wasn¡¯t the stars that were lighting his way¡ªit was the star¡ªthe sun¡ªthe dawn. The sky itself was brightening. He needed to hurry; he¡¯d been messing around in this godforsaken hellhole all night. Soon the cows would be mooing to be milked, the cocks would be crowing, the swifts chirping, the cicadas rattling, the frogs croaking, and choral ensembles of dogs would be barking at nothing at all¡ªcomplete with distinct alto, tenor, and basso profundo sections, each putting all their energy into the performance, while their owners screamed at them to shut up. Finally, when the sky turned orange, and the sun dripped upward from the horizon like a blob of molten lava, the farmers would trudge off to work, dragging their carts behind them, the vast majority too poor to own even a single spavined Rocinante. They¡¯d spot Gontran and shout at each other in whatever impossible dialect they spoke. Then the knights would ride him down, net him like a fish, and drag him back to Venice in exchange for a sack of ringing golden solidi.


    No thanks.


    At the promontory¡¯s top was a splendid countryside view, one worthy of a panorama shot, a five-star rating on the internet that did not exist. In the faraway blue-gray mist Gontran even spotted the Venetian lagoon, and the towers and domes rising like a plague of mushrooms from the Venetian isles, and even little sailboats flitting back and forth along the channels between the shoals. At this distance the ships looked like white-winged butterflies perched on the waves. Some were headed into the Adriatic, which was where the Paralos was, if it hadn¡¯t been sunk¡ªif its crew still lived. Gontran sighed.


    In other directions lay other cities whose names were beyond him. Vicenza, Padua, Ferrara, Mantua¡ªwho knew which was what? Yet each had Romantic connotations. In the old world, rich Americans would have spent a thousand dollars a day lounging around these places, sipping coffee in the morning and wine in the evening, bumbling around historic town centers and taking selfies in front of curving church facades weighed down by hot sleepy afternoons, heading to the Lido to sunbathe (scandalized by the topless sunburnt crones who had the same idea), stuffing their faces three times a day with food that was nothing like the Italian food back home.


    Can¡¯t say I blame them. Man, that would be nice. A nice little Italian vacation.


    The Roman road led westward across a great deal of cleared farmland to a decent-sized urban agglomeration of some kind. That must have been Verona¡ªfair Verona, where Gontran hoped to lay his scene. He could even make out what looked like a miniature coliseum there, one covered with trees and vines, a living Piranesi sketch, Mother Nature collecting on the debt she was owed. There were other cities, too, in other directions, but he only looked around for a moment. His principle concern was the gate and the wall in the path ahead.


    Monselice, come for the walls, stay for the locks.


    Quickly opening the locked gate as though he was using a key rather than two nails, he entered the fortress. Inside was a small courtyard with shovels, wheelbarrows, and ladders. There was also a stable with a horse which nickered when it saw him; Gontran put his index finger to his mouth. Then he crept inside the quiet tower, its door being the only one in Monselice he had encountered which was unlocked. Past a small stone lobby for scraping your shoes¡ªGontran didn¡¯t have any¡ªwas the usual enormous dining hall with a vast wooden table surrounded by chairs as well as a fireplace with embers glowing inside. Yet another monstrous hound was sleeping on a carpet on the floor, but the beast remained asleep.


    You have one job, Gontran thought, shaking his head¡ªthough his right hand gripped the hilt of Boscolo¡¯s sheathed sword. Gontran considered slaying the dog outright, and although he hated dogs, he didn¡¯t hate them that much. He couldn¡¯t kill a poor cute little poochie in cold blood, even if this ¡®poor cute little poochie¡¯ was the size of a couch. Besides, the noise would wake whoever was sleeping in the tower.


    Larder, larder, where¡¯s the larder? Where¡¯s the pantry?


    The kitchen adjoined the hall. Keeping an eye on the dog, Gontran crept inside. There he finally found what he needed: sacks of bread, salt pork, cheese, meat pies, plus barrels of wine, oceans of wine, rivers of wine to float upon.


    Piles of apples from last season were even stored in the pantry. These medieval people used some trick to keep them from rotting in the absence of modern refrigeration techniques. The pantry itself was cool, dark, windowless.


    Gontran took all he could carry, stuffing an old rancid rasher of bacon into his pocket in case he needed to distract the dog by the front door. But would that even work? This was a game, yes, but was it that kind of game?


    On Gontran¡¯s way out through the doorway to the hall, he ran into a small child¡ªboy or girl, impossible to tell¡ªwearing only a heavy woolen night shirt. As with every child Gontran encountered, this one looked like Joseph. Gontran froze. The child did the same. They stared at each other for a moment that lasted forever. As with the horse in the courtyard, Gontran held his index finger to his lips. This gesture was apparently understood in the medieval world, because the child nodded quietly in response. Gontran mouthed the word ¡°grazie,¡± then walked out through the front door, saddled the horse in the stable, piled it with everything he had stolen, and rode out quietly through the front gate and down the path to the town. Everyone was still asleep¡ªincluding Istv¨¢n, who was snoring against the gnarled oak¡¯s far side. Gontran shook him awake, and together they mounted the horse, which was a good strong charger, and perfect for a knight. Just as they were riding out of town, shouts came from the tower. A muscular young man was sprinting down the path in his night shirt, clutching a sword that was as long as he was tall, screaming for all he was worth. Groans came from the village as people woke up. Then the church bells rang.


    Gontran urged the horse to a canter. The man¡ªpresumably the tower knight¡ªchased them as far as he could, though even at a canter an Olympic runner would have had a hard time keeping up with a horse. Eventually the man gave up. He was so out of breath he lacked the strength to keep shouting.


    Gontran looked at Istv¨¢n. ¡°Might be the only horse in Monselice.¡±


    Istv¨¢n bit into a loaf of bread, then offered the loaf to Gontran. ¡°Perhaps true.¡±


    Once they had put some distance between themselves and Monselice, they rode off into a secluded wood, threw themselves onto the ground, and devoured their food and guzzled their wine, too tired and content to speak. Monselice¡¯s frantic bells were still ringing, and even the bells of other cities and towns across the march were answering. Neither Gontran nor Istv¨¢n cared. The instant they had packed their bellies with food and drink, they passed out, exhausted beyond what they had believed possible, not even caring if the stolen horse rode off, or if anyone found them.

 13. Death Worm Tavern

    Joseph.


    The stolen horse nuzzled Gontran awake. He bolted upright. It was evening, the birds and insects were screaming as though trying to deafen one another, and he was still somehow alive. His head pounded, and his bladder felt like it was about to burst. Standing and staggering a few steps from the little secluded glade he had found with Istv¨¢n¡ªwho was snoring in the grass¡ªGontran unleashed a gushing flood of piss, one so profound it threatened to drown the world like a second biblical deluge. Both Lemuel Gulliver and Noah himself would have exchanged looks, had they seen this thundering urine¡ªfar more powerful than any firehose or opened floodgate, the jet strong enough to cut steel.


    Having emptied his bladder, Gontran next realized that he also needed to relieve his bowels. The resulting mountain of dung shocked him. Even a fully grown diplodocus plodding by would have stopped and stared. A first-time mother¡ªhaving just given birth to healthy cherubic octuplets¡ªwould have told Gontran that his achievement was greater. An entire acre of farmland could have been fertilized with this load of shit¡ªfertilized so thoroughly that nearby seeds as yet unplanted would have burst into green life at the mere thought of being scattered into such voluminous, nutrient-laden night soil. He could have fed the world like a living Ceres with his horn of overflowing plenty, a living god of shit.


    Damn, I had to go.


    His health and stamina ticked upward as a result.


    The road was impossible to see from the glade. Gontran and Istv¨¢n could have been in the middle of the woods, a thousand miles from the nearest hut. This was why no one had found them.


    Gontran ate dinner with the satisfaction of a free man, fed the horse with a bag of oats he¡¯d stolen from the stables¡ªthe satisfaction of a thief¡ªthen shook Istv¨¢n awake. Soon they were off. And before long, the Roman road was passing increasingly busy peasant hamlets. Forests had been cleared and marshes drained, and now farmland stretched for miles, all of it plowed and sown with crops. The houses, too, were changing, the mud walls turning to wood or stone, the thatch roofs becoming tile. These houses looked cozier than the wretched, smoke-filled hovel Gontran had known in Metz. Something was waking this place. A dark age still reigned in Monselice, but here people were already moving toward the light of the Renaissance.


    ¡°It is weather,¡± Istv¨¢n said, when Gontran asked about all the activity here. ¡°Every year good. Even the grandparents say it never so good when they are child. Every season perfect. Right amount of rain and sun, cold and heat. Every season mild. So for once, farming easy. Even the peasants do well. They have time and strength to build homes. And they have children, many children. Now everyone always hungry for land, always looking, always clearing.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s funny,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Where I come from, the weather¡¯s crazy. Huge storms wipe out entire cities every few months. Half the people can¡¯t get enough water, half the people have too much. But here I guess it¡¯s nice and stable.¡±


    ¡°Better than you think. Italiaorsz¨¢g, it land of passion. Women here are beautiful, and they love you like they want a chain for you and them, and then they throw away key. And their brothers and fathers¡ªthey kill you. If you look at pretty daughter, pretty sister, then brothers and fathers draw the swords.¡±


    ¡°¡®We work hard and we play hard,¡¯¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°What?¡±


    Gontran shook his head. ¡°Sorry, just some of the nonsense I had to deal with where I come from.¡±


    ¡°In Franciaorsz¨¢g, you mean?¡±


    ¡°No. Someplace else.¡±


    Istv¨¢n asked more, but Gontran refused to elaborate. He was getting tired of explaining the old world. They always asked the same questions and reacted the same way. It had been interesting, when he had first arrived in the game, to explain something like an airplane to people who believed that you needed to flap your arms like a bird in order to fly, but the novelty had worn off, especially since so many of them refused to believe him. He was frustrated, too, because he knew that in the old world, people would react the same way. They would look at him like he was insane if he even mentioned that he had once ridden a horse to medieval Verona. The effect of all this old world skepticism¡ªperfectly reasonable from their point of view¡ªwould be so powerful, continuous, and omnipresent that he, too, would suspect that he had lost his mind, even though all his senses told him that at this very moment, he was riding a horse to medieval Verona.


    Gontran and Istv¨¢n came to the city from the south. Built on the curving River Adige, its sturdy Roman walls hugged a jumble of rectangular gray towers and brown-red campaniles. Dozens of these rose above the rooftops, and the bells from some of the old square churches were clanging so loudly that nothing else could be heard.


    Gontran and Istv¨¢n entered Verona through a tall white Roman gate of arches, pillars, and triangles just before it was closed for the night; the tired guards leaning on their halberds barely glanced at them before waving them inside. The paved streets were lain out in a regular Roman grid, and crowded with the medley of people that could always be found in more important medieval cities. Old world films would have depicted the people here as painfully white¡ªso as not to upset the more sensitive viewers¡ªbut Gontran quickly found many Arab merchants, Jews, and even Africans. This latter group was a sign that your city mattered: only backwaters were monocultural. Some Africans were slaves sweating under sacks of heavy merchandise¡ªslave masters in this time period did not discriminate: they were equal-opportunity enslavers who believed firmly in inclusion, and would therefore manacle and abuse anyone they could find regardless of skin color, usually prisoners of war fleeing lost battles, mostly women and children snatched up in sacked cities, who themselves worked out of sight of the streets as domestic servants and sex slaves. Other Africans were freemen. These went about their business like regular Italians, dressed in the same plain clothes, shouting the same boisterous language, and gesturing in the same ridiculous manner. Gontran could almost hear them saying: ¡°Ey, come on, whaddya gonna do?¡± For whatever reason, old world movies depicted Italians or Romans as British or American, but when you went back in time and saw them in action, they tended to remind you of Italians. A few Africans were pilgrims from Aethiopia or merchants or ambassadors dressed in diamonds and saffron. One was even being carried through the city in a palanquin chair held by four white slaves, their muscles bulging from the strain, the sweat pouring from their matted hair, for their master was fat. Gontran wondered how long it had been since he had seen a fat person. In the medieval world, fatness was a sign of wealth; in the old world, it was a sign of poverty.


    Chuckling, Gontran also imagined the ghosts of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X smiling down with approval from the sky on the Black master with white slaves. Though in reality, Talia and Herakleia and the uprising also did not discriminate, and would destroy slavery wherever they found it, regardless of skin color.


    Then Gontran and Istv¨¢n passed the usual medieval sights and smelled the usual medieval smells. Butchers whacked hunks of red meat with axes while flies buzzed animal corpses dangling on black iron hooks greased with blood and fat. Children were playing everywhere unsupervised.


    All day, every day, for ten years or so, Gontran thought. Rolling around in the dirt with animals, some children wearing no more than a cloth shirt, truly free range kids. The school of hard knocks.


    An enormous red brick church with a more ornate style was surrounded by wooden scaffolds, although the construction workers had already left for the day. Most shops were closed or closing¡ªthey advertised their wares with carvings and paintings rather than written words¡ªbut the taverns were open and shining with torchlight, roaring with conversation and song and laughter, and reeking of ale, wine, piss, and vomit.


    Good old medieval city life, Gontran thought.


    Istv¨¢n stabled the horse, telling the sleepy stableboy they¡¯d pay in the morning.


    ¡°With what money?¡± Gontran whispered to Istv¨¢n as they walked away.


    ¡°Do not worry,¡± Istv¨¢n said, limping beside him and wincing from the pain of his wounded ankle. ¡°I take care of everything. You free me from slavery, Gontran, and so now I free you from slavery of hunger, slavery of need.¡±


    Gontran asked Istv¨¢n what he was talking about, but got no answer.


    Next, Istv¨¢n guided him to a tavern marked with a large wooden sign depicting what he could have sworn was a death worm¡ªthe gigantic monster which had nearly devoured him back in Trebizond, an experience he had been struggling to forget ever since. Gontran shuddered. Although the image was quaint, it was disturbing enough to make him hesitate, but Istv¨¢n urged him to continue.


    ¡°What is matter?¡± Istv¨¢n said.


    Gontran shook his head. ¡°Nothing.¡±


    Inside the Death Worm Tavern were roaring drunkards, men and women clutching each other, and everyone¡ªsave the grumpy barmaids¡ªhaving a good time. Istv¨¢n pulled Gontran straight over to a dark table in the corner where three skinny white men were sitting. The instant these spotted Istv¨¢n, they threw themselves onto the floor¡ªcovered with fish and chicken bones gnawed clean amid wads of phlegm¡ªand bowed repeatedly, repeating the word uram, crawling toward him, seizing his hand, and kissing it.


    Bunch of weirdos, Gontran thought.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    As it turned out, Istv¨¢n was the scion of a Hungarian nobleman. Captured in battle by the Venetians and subsequently enslaved and forced to work as a glassmaker, his father¡ªLord Emeric of Esztergom¡ªhad sent men to scour the Veneto for his poor son. Istv¨¢n himself had been told, in the event of his capture, to make his way to Verona, then to the Death Worm Tavern¡ª¡°you can¡¯t miss it!¡±¡ªand then to a specific table in the back, where some of his father¡¯s servants would always be waiting.


    They bound up Istv¨¢n¡¯s wound, and found him some clean clothes, as well as clean clothes for Gontran. They drank. They partied. Gontran lost himself. He had stopped caring. Life was short and could end in an instant for the most laughable reason, the equivalent of an anvil dropping on your head from the sky, so what did anything matter?


    Just enjoy yourself as best you can. Don¡¯t think.


    The wine flowed in rivers¡ªin fuming fiumi¡ªand he devoured the usual medieval fare¡ªpies stuffed with meat and cheese. Without tomatoes, Italian cuisine was difficult to distinguish from that belonging to France, Germany, Spain, or England. It was all the same shit wherever you went. Pork pies, pigeon pies, fish pies.


    Pies, pies, pies, you want ¡®em, we got ¡®em.


    They laughed, drank, talked, told stories. In Hungarian, Istv¨¢n explained Gontran to his servants, who subsequently bowed, thanked and congratulated him in broken Italian, and then procured anything he desired. Gontran was supposed to be disgusted with this kind of feudal behavior, but he no longer cared.


    I gave everything to the uprising, and what did it get me? Chains around my ankles on a salt farm. Whips on my back on the deck of my own ship. I¡¯m done with all this idealistic bullshit.


    When it was almost morning, Gontran and his new friends¡ªIstv¨¢n, Benedek, Gabor, and Csaba¡ªstaggered along the dark streets, pissing and vomiting everywhere, singing Hungarian battle tunes, dancing drunkenly before a folk band that was playing in the torchlight before a fountain in the city¡¯s old Roman forum. Someone dressed in clashing colors was juggling what looked to Gontran¡¯s eyes like bowling pins.


    Somehow he found himself hugging a sex worker or a sex slave¡ªsomeone whom poverty forced to tolerate his clumsy advances and his breath which reeked of wine, at least so long as he paid. Gontran buried his head between her soft beautiful breasts, and annoyed her by crying¡ªin his profound drunkenness¡ªfor Dekarch Ra¡¯isa. The sex worker¡ªa pale Greek beauty dolled up in lead rouge, black eye shadow, and white powder, her black curly ringlets pouring all the way down to her thighs like a waterfall of hair¡ªjerked his penis to give him an erection and get it over with, all in vain. He was flaccid. His life¡ªhis very existence¡ªwas flaccid. Living like this led only to death, misery, destruction, but it was easier than sticking your neck out, just for someone to cut it off.


    ¡°We¡¯re only human,¡± he babbled.


    She nodded, pretending to understand.


    ¡°Can¡¯t we get a break sometimes?¡±


    Gontran collapsed in bed beside her and puked on the floor. That was all he remembered.


    Gontran woke up in a bed that was in a room somewhere, feeling as though he had been poisoned. It wasn¡¯t just the predictable headache that seemed to ax his skull in half like it was a watermelon the instant he made the mistake of opening his eyes to the golden afternoon gleaming outside his window and the medley of bells ding-dang-donging from the ornate campaniles rising into the spring clouds as if to warn him of the second death that awaited him in the fires of the Hell of the Damned for his betrayal of the uprising and all it stood for. No. It was the way a rotten essence permeated his flesh, muscle, and blood. His mouth tasted disgusting. He stank of vomit, piss, and alcohol, and was drenched in sweat.


    For some time he was unable to even think. All he could do was lie in bed¡ªin an inn or brothel, who knew?¡ªand stew in misery as the world went by outside his window. At some point he climbed out of bed, splashed his face, rinsed his mouth using water someone had poured for him in a ceramic bowl, and even took advantage of the mint leaves left in a little wooden box on the bedside table. Someone had even cleaned his vomit from the floor. It might have been Maria, the woman he had failed to sleep with last night.


    Maria. Everyone¡¯s named Maria. And why wouldn¡¯t they be? She was Jesus¡¯s mom. A woman so hot, God himself couldn¡¯t resist her.


    Gontran looked out the window to get his bearings, but he had never been to Verona, and so the sight before him¡ªcrowds milling and donkeys braying beneath stone and wood buildings lost in the shadows of towers¡ªwas meaningless. As he was looking around like a miserable fool, someone knocked on his door. He opened it to one of Istv¨¢n¡¯s servants¡ªthis one was named Benedek¡ªwho bowed and guided him downstairs to the Death Worm Tavern. Gontran never got tired of this place. He never got tired of being reminded of that one time a giant tentacle monster almost ate him.


    Istv¨¢n, Gabor, and Csaba were gathered at the same table as before. When Gontran and Benedek arrived¡ªIstv¨¢n and his cronies had been polite enough to wait¡ªthey had dinner. This time Gontran, however, was unable to drink anything but water, and unable to eat anything but a few mouthfuls of bread. The Hungarians, in contrast, were eating and drinking as though they had just crawled out of a desert.


    Istv¨¢n slapped Gontran gently across the chest. ¡°Hey, you listen. We go to the Magyarors¨¢g soon. Maybe tomorrow morning. You should come with us.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± Gontran said. ¡°You want me to come with you?¡±


    ¡°So I say!¡± Istv¨¢n looked at Benedek, Gabor, and Csaba, who were politely watching. ¡°I am son of a lord. Many years ago my ancestors ride in and kill some people and take some land. Ever since, we live in comfort. You should come. We live as kings.¡±


    ¡°Peasants do all the work though,¡± Gontran said.


    Gabor, Csaba, and Benedek exchanged looks.


    Istv¨¢n frowned. ¡°They always lazy and stupid. But we never see them, except for servants in father¡¯s castle, so it¡¯s no problem. And peasants in castle behave. It not easy in there, but it better than field work.¡±


    ¡°You were just a slave for how long?¡± Gontran said. ¡°And you¡¯re telling me you¡¯re looking forward to living off a bunch of peasants?¡±


    ¡°We have many thousands on our land. So we live like the kings. Even if they lazy, we live well. We eat, sleep, drink, fight, fuck. That¡¯s how we live. It good life!¡±


    ¡°You know where I came from,¡± Gontran said. ¡°You know my friends are against all that.¡±


    ¡°In Franciaorsz¨¢g?¡±


    ¡°No, I mean in Trebizond. Have you heard of the uprising?¡±


    Istv¨¢n shook his head.


    ¡°It¡¯s a slave revolt,¡± Gontran said. ¡°They¡¯re the ones who own that ship I was commanding.¡±


    Istv¨¢n looked at his servants. ¡°It not go well I think.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Gontran said. ¡°Not exactly¡­¡±


    ¡°You see?¡± Istv¨¢n spread his long arms wide, then lowered them. ¡°It way of world. It cannot change. And you know this city¡ªthe Verona¡ªits nickname is ¡®Little Rome.¡¯ There is little coliseum here¡ªactually it very big, it is just small compare with coliseum in Rome¡ªand did death fights there. Many buildings here built using slaves. Things always bad, ever since Adam and Eve fall out of garden.¡±


    Gontran had argued like this many times with Alexios and Herakleia. Somehow it grossed him out to hear the same thoughts from a nobleman, because Gontran hated noblemen. He had only tolerated Istv¨¢n out of ignorance of his status. Now that Gontran knew the truth, if he¡¯d possessed his pistol-sword, he might have drawn it right now under the table and blown Istv¨¢n away.


    ¡°If you try to change the things,¡± Istv¨¢n continued, ¡°you just make the things worse. Like Spartacus, you know? He and all his friends die. Many thousands. Maybe it better if he just bow to Rome. Then everyone live.¡±


    ¡°He couldn¡¯t,¡± Gontran blurted.


    Istv¨¢n, Csaba, Gabor, and Benedek looked at him.


    ¡°What you mean?¡± Istv¨¢n said.


    ¡°You think they had much of a choice? You think they didn¡¯t try everything they possibly could to avoid bloodshed?¡± Gontran shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s not how it works. The moment you throw your lot in with an uprising, it¡¯s victory or death. And a lot of people only get to that point by kicking or screaming. They know what fighting back means. Endless work, misery, bloodshed, boredom, all for an uncertain future. They know there¡¯s no going back. That they¡¯ll probably never live to see the world they want to build. But it¡¯s better than the prison they live in. The uncertain future is better than the certain present, one where they have to watch everyone they know suffer and die needlessly. They start to think that maybe things don¡¯t need to be the way they are. They start asking questions nobody can answer. And you know how the authorities answer?¡±


    His Hungarian friends shook their heads. Gontran was getting worked up. He had been living around idealists for too long. He had reached the point of quoting the Bible, a book he hated.


    ¡°¡®They say what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right,¡¯¡± Gontran said. ¡°¡®That black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.¡±


    Istv¨¢n said something in Hungarian to Csaba, Benedek, and Gabor. They laughed.


    ¡°Listen,¡± Istv¨¢n said to Gontran. ¡°Forget history, ideas, society. Just think about you. Back in Velence, you lucky. You like Bible? Well, guess what? God bless you. You go free in days because of the drunken Boscolo.¡±


    ¡°One day working out there was enough for me,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Many other slaves,¡± Istv¨¢n continued, ¡°they work years, decades, if they live. They never escape. Le saline are tombs. Salt tastes like blood for a reason. I am there for months, you know? Boscolo, he not always drunken. That day, he drinks a lot. He celebrating because you good expensive slave. He think maybe he can retire. Now he dead. He make one mistake, and he dead. And think about this. We still in Verona. Velence not far. One or two days on horse. Maybe Venetians find you. Maybe they take you to le saline again. This time, they give you special chains with no lock. You need blacksmith to get them off. And then you never escape. For years you think about me. You think about beautiful Magyarorsz¨¢g, beautiful Magyar ladies. You think about the life you maybe have there. It like a sword in your brain.¡±


    Gontran covered his face with his hands. He isn¡¯t completely wrong.


    Istv¨¢n rubbed his shoulder for a moment. ¡°You are fun in party. You are good man. You help me find friends and family, and you ask nothing in return.¡±


    ¡°Believe me, that¡¯s not the way it usually is,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°But you free right person, Gontran. I am not regular person. I am like a god that is testing you. Well, you pass the test. I repay you a thousand times. For your entire life, you can live in Magyarorsz¨¢g. You never worry about anything again. It is safe place. Our warriors are fearsome. All Christendom fears them. My father, he grateful for your help. Maybe he even knight you. Then you get peasants, plus you get a lady for a wife, title to lands that last forever. And so? Nothing to worry about the rest of your life. Your only trouble is boredom. Is asking: what do I do today? Hunt? Read? Drink? Sleep?¡± He laughed, and his servants laughed with him.


    Gontran snorted. It¡¯s tempting. I¡¯m tired of the uprising. Tired of losing, of running for my life and losing good people. Joseph¡¯s gone, and for what? Diaresso, Ra¡¯isa, Alexios, and Herakleia are all still out there, but they can get along fine without me. I did my part. I tried my best. It didn¡¯t work out.


    ¡°So?¡± Istv¨¢n said. ¡°What you think?¡±


    ¡°You make a good case,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°Good!¡± Istv¨¢n exclaimed. ¡°Then you come with us?¡±


    Gontran nodded. ¡°Yeah, I think so.¡±

 14. Relax Forever

    That night, everyone turned in early. Gontran dreamt he was in a house with all the doors and windows bolted shut. Someone was still knocking, then pounding on all the doors and shutters, shouting to be let in. Gontran yelled for the someone to go away. But the pounding just got louder and stronger. Soon the fists would burst through, and a tempest would consume the house, destroying everything, remaking everything.


    Gontran opened his eyes. Morning. Sparrows and swifts were chirping outside the window. Chanticleers were chanting clearly. Nobody was trying to break in. He was in a bed above the Death Worm tavern in Verona in the eleventh century. Milling crowds murmured in the paved streets that were already clop, clop, clopping with horse hooves. A blackbird sang, reminding him of an old world song.


    After a quick breakfast, Istv¨¢n¡¯s servants procured supplies for the journey to Magyarors¨¢g. These included horses, weapons, armor, blankets, coats, changes of clothes, new shoes, food, water¡ªeverything required to journey along the Via Imperii. This august path of trammeled muck would bring travelers through the Alps via the Brenner Pass. Once they reached the little town of Innsbruck, they would swing east through the Duchy of Carinthia, take ship at the River Danube, and sail until they reached the twin fortresses of Buda and Pest, facing each other on opposite sides of the great river.


    ¡°There we relax forever,¡± Istv¨¢n explained.


    Everyone by then was mounted on expensive horses which were prancing out of Verona.


    ¡°All troubles end,¡± Istv¨¢n continued. ¡°We tell same war stories over and over, again and again, until we are old men, and our grandchildren say: ¡®Stop! Enough! No more!¡¯¡±


    Istv¨¢n laughed, and Benedek, Gabor, and Csaba laughed with him, although it was unlikely they had understood. Gontran forced himself to laugh also.


    He regretted that he had barely seen Verona. With his stamina and health mostly recovered, he was feeling more like his mercantile self this morning. Part of him wanted to stay a little longer to sniff out deals, since almost anything you bought here you could sell for two or three times as much once you made it past the Alps. And then on top of that, always¡ªthe instant he was rested, fed, free of danger¡ªa wide silk canvas would waver in his mind as if across the eastern sky, glimmering in his thoughts like a red sunrise, blowing in a warm lustrous breeze scented with cinnamon. He would hear the twang of the peculiar lutes they played in Dongjing mixed with the women¡¯s chatter filtering out from the doorways. Rice wine would foam on his tongue as he conversed with the philosopher-administrators, floating on skiffs along artificial rivers built within palaces where the rooftops always curved up at the lower edges as if amused.


    But Istv¨¢n wanted to leave. He reminded Gontran that there was no telling when the Venetians would come looking for them. Only when the travelers made it past the Alps could they stop fearing entanglement in the Venetian web. The Serenissima was a watery Antaeus: dangerous on the sea almost wherever you went, but harmless on land¡ªfor now, at least.


    And so Istv¨¢n and his servants left Verona¡ª¡°my sharona,¡± Gontran quietly sang, not even knowing why. Behind them, gray stone towers rose into spring clouds soaked in gleaming buttery sunshine. Gontran kept silent while the Hungarians around him conversed excitedly. He was unable to hear them over the single phrase echoing in his mind.


    This is it.


    This was the end of the life he had been living for the past year, ever since meeting Alexios in that dingy Abydos tavern. Whether Gontran went to Hungary or Metz¡ªthe Via Imperii stretched to the Baltic shore, after all, where blue waves unrolled glowing chunks of amber electrum on the sand¡ªhe was turning his back on the uprising. He¡¯d had enough. It would never trouble him again.


    One person can¡¯t make a difference, he thought. My friends¡ªcan¡¯t even call them that anymore¡ªthey¡¯ll win or they¡¯ll lose without me. Ra¡¯isa, Diaresso, Alexios, Herakleia, you¡¯re on your own. I¡¯m sorry.


    Sadness crept up his throat like a soreness, but he swallowed it down. Then he raised his eyes as he finished crossing the old Roman bridge that arced across the Adige River, which was swollen with purling meltwater. Ahead¡ªbeyond acres of brown farmland and tall thin cypresses burning like dark green torch flames¡ªlay the snowcapped Alps, a wall of monster teeth sheltering warm Italy from wintry Germany.


    When the sun had raised itself directly overhead and was cooking the backs of the travelers¡¯ necks, Istv¨¢n made them stop at a nameless fishing village next to Lake Garda. Just outside a tavern overlooking the vast gleaming waters, Istv¨¢n gestured for Gontran to sit with him at one of two tables. The other was unoccupied. Csaba, Gabor, and Benedek, meanwhile, took care of the horses, ordered food¡ªfish fried in batter, butter, herbs¡ªand procured wine before joining them, sloshing it from a clay pitcher into clay cups. Another group of travelers soon sat at the nearby table: four young men with swords belted at their sides, all so close they were nearly rubbing elbows with Istv¨¢n¡¯s crew. Without looking at the newcomers, Gontran listened to their conversation. They were speaking Venetian.


    He covered his face with his hand. Just once I wish I could do something or go somewhere without running into Venetians. I could travel all the way to the South Pole, trudge across the tundra for weeks without seeing a single living thing, arrive at Lake Vostok¡ªfrozen solid for a hundred miles down¡ªand what would I find? A bunch of Venetians. They¡¯d even be waiting for me on the other side of the moon. You can¡¯t scratch your ass without bumping into twenty fucking Venetians.


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    Istv¨¢n and his servants watched him with concern, as though they expected him to blow their cover at any moment. They had also stopped speaking Hungarian. The Venetians must have been listening for the peculiar shushing sounds of the Hungarian tongue, especially for the one word Hungarians loved above all others: Magyarors¨¢g.


    Istv¨¢n¡¯s group instead struggled to converse in Venetian. They praised the lake, the fish, the scenery, the food. Each man present at Istv¨¢n¡¯s table spoke with exaggerated Italian accents and mannerisms. Words like ¡°molto bene,¡± ¡°bellissimo,¡± ¡°delicioso,¡± ¡°pesci,¡± and¡ªyes¡ª¡°mamma mia¡± were shouted repeatedly while they gestured to one another, holding their thumbs to their forefingers while pretending to guzzle their wine. This was the only way to mask their accents; to have kept quiet would have looked suspicious. Gontran recalled how Italians often frowned at him for his Frenchness the instant he said words like ¡°buongiorno¡± or ¡°grazie,¡± so he did his best to seem as Italian as humanly possible.


    In order to defeat monsters, we must become monsters.


    Amidst the fake conversation at Istv¨¢n¡¯s table, it was easy to eavesdrop on the Venetians. When Gontran discovered what they were discussing¡ªanimatedly¡ªhe stopped talking and slumped in his seat.


    ¡°It is astonishing that they captured it!¡± the first Venetian said. ¡°A ship, a fine ship worth at least a thousand golden solidi, and in perfect condition, as though they had sailed it straight out of the shipyards of Romagna and into our hands!¡±


    ¡°A goodly load of merchandise was aboard as well,¡± the second Venetian said. ¡°The finest women you could ask for. Asses like this, tits like this.¡± He made cupping signs with his hands. ¡°So lovely, even Christ on the cross would have popped a chubby.¡±


    The Venetians laughed.


    ¡°And they had a statue made of bronze,¡± the first Venetian said. ¡°A peculiar contraption seemingly powered by steam, most remarkable in its ingenuity, very much like the inventions of Archimede, but shaped in the form of yet another gorgeous woman.¡±


    ¡°Romagna is full of them,¡± a third Venetian said. ¡°Positively bursting at the seams with them. Gorgeous Greeks and Slavs. I tell you, I¡¯m saving up for a villa stocked with such women. I¡¯ll have a big garden with a fountain and a wall, a real paradiso, a real garden of earthly delights, and when I¡¯m a rich old man, all I¡¯ll do is frolic with naked slaves all day.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s how the Great Turk lives,¡± the first Venetian said.


    Horny bastards, Gontran thought. Why don¡¯t you squeeze one off instead of making fools of yourselves?


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll be the Great Turk,¡± the third said. ¡°I¡¯ll sleep each night on beds made of women. I¡¯ll eat every meal off the bellies of women. I¡¯ll drink wine from the mouths of women.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take five shits a day from the asses of women,¡± the second said.


    More laughter. Gontran was disgusted.


    ¡°The Loredani were hunting the ship for days and days,¡± the first said. ¡°They¡¯d had some trouble with it. It seems they captured it before, but then it slipped out of their grasp. The second time¡¯s the charm, as they say. Now there¡¯ll be no escape. The ship¡¯s been towed into the Arsenale, the crew chained up in the ducal palace. They just have to find their captain, a Frank who ran off from le saline de Clugia a few days ago. He might even still be in the area. The guy abandoned his crew. Can you believe it? What a coward!¡±


    Gontran was trembling with rage.


    ¡°He could even be nearby.¡± The second nodded to Garda. ¡°Frogs love lakes, don¡¯t they?¡± The man leaned over to Gontran and nudged him with his elbow. ¡°Hey amico, seen any frogs lately?¡±


    The Venetians laughed. Gontran glared at the second one.


    This man clapped Gontran¡¯s back. ¡°No need to be sour! I¡¯m just messing with you! It was just a joke! Lighten up! Have a sense of humor! Be more sociable!¡±


    It was over before Gontran knew what had happened. The Venetians were spasming on the ground, choking on the fountains of blood welling from their throats, which they were clutching. Their eyes bulged for a moment, but soon the Venetians were silent and still as black pools expanded around them, the blood trickling from their necks, the game voice shouting about critical hits and telling him he had leveled up to Intermediate Brawler (5/10). How had he even done this? Gontran approached the lake and cleaned his blood-drenched sword, clothes, and hands in in the water. He was trembling. Only a faint memory of what had happened flashed like lightning in the storm clouds of his mind.


    ¡°Are you mad?¡± Istv¨¢n exclaimed. ¡°I cannot take you anywhere!¡±


    He and his servants had leaped from their seats and drawn their swords. Now they were staring at Gontran as if at a rampant lion. Something crashed in the tavern doorway. Everyone looked: the serving wench had dropped a platter of dishes and then fled inside.


    Gontran walked to the horses. ¡°I¡¯m going back to Venice,¡± he said to Istv¨¢n.


    ¡°Velence?¡± Istv¨¢n said. ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Situation¡¯s changed,¡± Gontran said.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going there,¡± Istv¨¢n said. ¡°It is mouse trap, and we are the mice. It is city of death. I return to the home. I return to Magyarors¨¢g. To the life.¡±


    Gontran went back to Istv¨¢n. They shook hands, wishing each other luck, fortune, God¡¯s grace. Then Gontran nodded to Benedek, Csaba, and Gabor, and they to him. After he searched the dead Venetians¡¯ pockets for coins¡ªso focused on his new mission that he neglected to count them, though the men had been rich¡ªhe left a golden solidus stamped with Charlemagne¡¯s face on the table, mentally apologizing to the serving wench for the mess. That left thirty-six solidi for Gontran, a small downpayment on the hundred and twenty golden nomismas the bastard Loredani had stolen from him.


    Soon enough, Gontran was riding a horse along the road east to Venice.