Burdens of the Dead: Chapter Two

Trebizond

    The night held nothing but terror and blood.

    Lying dead-still next to a broken piece of wall in the eastern quarter of Trebizond, Mario Calchetti counted his time in heartbeats. He prayed. The knife-slash on his left forearm bled weakly. This ruin offered scant hiding places. They’d find him. And what chance did he have? They were plainly expert killers.

    He wondered if they were Baitini; they’d had that sort of skill, that quickness, that lethality. But what would the religious fanatics want with a seaman like him? They didn’t kill ordinary people. Lords and viziers were their usual targets.

    But whoever they were, they’d killed Tomaso as easily as a man might butcher a hog, and the too quickly for either of them to call for help. Mario had only escaped because it had been quite narrow on the stair, and Tomaso’s falling body had impeded the killer. Mario had jumped the stair-rail and run; then, dived into this ruin. They had run past…but now one of them had come back.

    Mario caught the gleam of a knife-blade in the moonlight as the man moved, catlike, searching. Maybe, Mario thought, it would have been better to drown like the rest of the crew. But he and Tomaso had survived that; clung to wreckage, and been washed up and walked to safety along the coast. Trebizond had seemed, at last, a place of refuge. The gate-guard had let them in, and they’d been climbing the stairs, arguing about just who they needed to go to see to report the ship lost — and then these two killers had accosted them. Never gave them a chance to tell anyone in authority what had happened.

    In a ruined building in Trebizond on the coast of the Black Sea, where the caravans from the east met the trade-convoys of the west, someone said: “I’m Baitini. You can’t escape me. Come out and I will make your death a quick and merciful one.” The assassin spoke conversationally, as if he was merely inviting his quarry for a drink.

    Mario pressed his bulk harder against the remaining bit of masonry, trying to will the deep shadow still darker. He was a big, solid man, an oarsman, and there wasn’t much shadow. His attempt to hide more effectively betrayed him. A piece of the fallen brickwork shifted under him and something cracked. The killer, standing like a questing hound, turned upward toward his hiding place, a flash of teeth in the moonlight. He came stalking forward, knife ready.

    Mario was terrified. He was a big man, and strong, but still just a sailor. Tavern brawls were what he was accustomed to, not this sort of cold-blooded murder.

    He didn’t even try for his own knife. He just grabbed a lump of masonry, intending to fling it and run, praying this would buy him a few more moments of life. It was a couple of bricks, still roughly mortared together. Mario had big hands, and huge shoulders from rowing. He flung the broken bricks with hysterical strength. Too late, the knife man managed only to raise an arm to ward it off and tried to move aside. But it was a nearly impossible missile to stop, and he actually moved into its path. It knocked him down.

    Mario grabbed a second, even larger piece of angular mortar, and flung it two handed at his attacker. He didn’t miss this time, either. Staggering forward with a broken column base, he brought it down on the fallen killer’s head, with all the strength he could muster. And then he ran.

    He didn’t look back to see if the assassin got up, or not. Or whether there was anyone else. The Hypatian cloister was ahead, the chapel door was open, and, as he could run no more, he blundered in. He joined those kneeling, and bowed his head very low, and automatically murmured a prayer. There were too many people for the attackers to come here, surely? He prayed again; very devoutly and very nervously, because he knew that this was only a temporary sanctuary.

    He was so nervous about it, that he hung back for too long. Before he quite realized it, most of the celebrants had left in groups, hastily heading for homes, for Trebizond was an anxious place these days. And now here he was alone.

    The Baitini had no respect for sanctuary, or the religion of others. All who were not of their sect were worthless unbelievers in their eyes. Mario, his eyes wild, looked at the small Hypatian sibling who had approached him. “My son, is there something you need?” the little man asked.

    “Brother…I can’t leave. They…they tried to kill me.” He wasn’t sure why he stammered this. There was no way a few unworldly siblings could protect him.

    For an answer the Hypatian swung the door closed and slid the heavy bar across. Such a thing would have been odd in other places, but religious feuds were common here. There were those who resented the traders, and anyway, if there was nothing else for you to fight about, there was always religion.

    “Who are they and why are they trying to kill you?” asked the Hypatian sibling calmly, turning back towards him.

    “I don’t know. They say they’re Baitini assassins. And I’ve never done anything to anyone. But they killed Tomaso, God rest his soul, and they’re trying to kill me. The one cut me.” He held out his arm.

    The Hypatian examined the cut. “I think I need to treat that.”

    “It’s little more than a scratch, Brother, and yet it burns still. Hurts like…well it’s very painful.”

    “It’s a scratch that confirms your story, my friend. Look at the edges of the cut. That blade was dipped in adder-venom. Look at the weal, and the way it has eaten at your flesh. They do that, the Baitini. That way, even if the blade misses something vital, the shock usually kills.”

    Mario blinked at his arm. “He’d stabbed Tomaso with the knife already…but why us? We’re just sailors.” He began to shake.

    The little Hypatian led him back towards the sacristy. “That sect needs no reason that we ordinary mortals can understand. Come. The wound must be cleaned and treated. It’s unlikely that there was enough poison to kill you, or you’d be dead already. What ship did you come off? Have you got companions that I can get to escort you back to her?”

    Mario laughed bitterly. “They’re food for the fishes, brother. We were attacked and they sank our ship. Tomaso and I were the only ones who got away. Those who attacked us were harpooning men in the water like porgies in a fish-trap. We’d come to bear the news and then this happened.”

    They stopped in a little stone-walled room next to the chapel, a room that smelled of herbs and other things Mario couldn’t identify. There were lots of bottles and jars, a good, bright lantern, a basin and a pitcher. Mario remembered that the Hypatians were healers too. It looked as if this room was in use often. The Hypatian washed the cut with some spirits of wine. It burned like cleansing fire. “And who did you tell this news to, brother?”

    Mario felt all at sea. “Well, I told the gate-guards, but no one else yet. Tomaso and I were trying to work out who to tell. We’re just sailors. I thought Milor’ Callaro…”

    “It should be told to the Venetian Podesta. He will send word of it to the sultan.” The sibling paused delicately. “Who was it that attacked your vessel?”

    Mario shrugged. “We saw no insignia. No flag. Pirates, I suppose.”

    The sibling looked at him. “But did you not sail in convoy?”

    Mario nodded. “But three ships were no match for fifteen, Brother.” He looked nervously around. “Are there other doors? I am scared they will come for me here.”

    “I doubt it,” said the Hypatian Sibling calmly. “The only other entrance leads by a passageway to our cloister. I think I will take you there, so you can tell this to our abbot.”

    Mario nodded eagerly. “I want to be with many people around me, please. Not that that will stop them. But…I am not a good man, Brother. I, I am scared to die unshriven, like Tomaso. I am scared to die. I prayed while I hid. Will you hear my confession?”

    The sibling looked up at the ceiling; then, looked around. “Indeed. But inside the cloister, I think. There is someone on the roof. Follow me.”

    The Hypatian abbot was a wizened old man with bright eyes and a scar across one cheek. He listened carefully. For a saintly looking old man he had a shrewd grasp of naval matters. He also had objections to people on his roof without his permission. He sent two of the siblings up to have look.

    “But…they’re dangerous,” protested Mario fearfully.

    The abbot nodded. “Yes, roofs are dangerous. Those pan-tiles can be especially treacherous. And difficult to replace.”

    “No, I mean the Baitini. They…”

    “Shouldn’t wander about on roofs,” said the abbot, with what might almost have been a wink. “It’s the kind of thing best left to roofers or thieves. The Hypatians draw all kinds to their ranks, friend. We will warn them. It is the right thing to do.”

    “But they’re good people…the siblings, I mean,” said Mario, thinking an un-armed sibling would merely be killed, but not wishing to say so.

    “And if those who walk about on the roof are good people, they will heed the warning and be told of the safe way off.” The abbot stood up.

    “Come,” he said, leading the sailor to a spiral stair which went up into the steeple. This entire building was of stone, more like a fortress than a cloister, but this was not a place where the Hypatians were common. Nor Christians, really. There were narrow slit windows looking out from the parapet below the bells, and Mario could see the moonlit roof below and the people on it. Three of them were attempting to climb up onto a cistern. Well, two men had lifted the third up.

    Mario watched as a little attic door under the roof-tree opened, and two siblings came out.

    “Our abbot has sent us to tell you that the roof is dangerous and to guide you to a safe way off it, if you choose to follow the instructions we will give you,” said one of the two siblings, a woman.

    The three Baitini turned from their climbing.

    “Kill them,” said the one to his companions.

    “The roof is dangerous, you really should go back,” said the sibling, as the Baitini stalked toward them. “Your lives and souls are at peril if you do not go back now.”

    “Be still, woman,” said one, raising a knife to throw, stepping forward as he did so. Then, with a scream, he slipped and fell, sliding down the steep roof, the knife in his hand skittered off the tiles, before he lost it, fighting for a hold. There was nothing there to stop him sliding, though, and he flew clear over the edge. It was a long way down to the cobbled street below.

    His companion, after a look of horror, advanced more slowly.

    The sibling spoke again. “I tell you again, it is not safe. If you do not retrace your steps precisely, all I can do is pray for you.”

    “I need no woman’s prayers,” said the assassin disdainfully. “Your infidel god will not protect you.”

    The woman-sibling was not at all disturbed by his threats. “We believe that God has many forms and that tolerance is all-important. Thus far, you have not harmed anyone here. Therefore, I will pray that you go back carefully, now.” She bowed her had over clasped hands.

    The killer didn’t listen. Suddenly he too lost his footing. He clawed at the roof, dropping his knife and somehow managed to cling despairingly to the very edge.

    “Abdul, help!” he panted desperately. His surviving companion looked up from where he had levered the lid off the cistern. Hastily, he poured something into it, before turning to go to his companion’s aid.

    “Poison. I suspected as much,” said the old abbot. “It won’t do any harm in that cistern. Unless he falls into it, of course.”

    Which was exactly what happened, a moment later.

    “What happened?” Mario asked, dazed by how suddenly the situation had reversed itself.

    “There are weak and strong slats. We’ll have to go and fish him out. I do not think we can get to the man hanging on the edge in time,” said the abbot, sadly. “We did warn them.”

    Mario looked at the abbot, his eyes big. Had he been the witness to a miracle?

    The abbot smiled at him. “The original abbot — this cloister was built in early days when times were even more uncertain — had been a knight, before he got the call, and he felt the roof was our weak point. The tiles pivot. Those men came onto the roof via the Chapel, which was built later.” A moment later, the man still clinging to the roof lost his grip, and fell to the cobbles.

    “How will you get the last one out of the cistern?” asked Mario, despite his horror…and relief.

    “A long pole. We’ll leave him to climb out by himself.” The abbot chuckled dryly. “It seems a dire price to have paid for poisoning a cistern which is kept for fire-fighting. The drinking ones are kept safe within the roof, and are much harder to get to.”

    “I hope he doesn’t get out of there too fast and still angry,” said Mario worriedly.

    “It’s a fair climb,” said the abbot, with no sign of worry.

    But in the end they had to send one of the siblings down to the harbour to borrow a long gaff, of the kind used for large sturgeon.

    The Baitini shouldn’t have swallowed some of the water he’d fallen into.

    The abbot just sighed and said that God moved according to His plan.

    The Baitini would have agreed. They also believed they were guided by God, but that he had words and gifts for them and them alone. They were also quite mad enough to have believed that God had chosen to give them martyrdom, though dying unheralded because of a trick roof seemed a poor sort of martyrdom to Mario.

    The bodies were given a respectful burial, although the Baitini probably wouldn’t have agreed that it was respectful, or that they should be buried on the grounds of the house of another faith. But the sailor Mario saw it as a message, and applied to the abbot for a novitiate on the spot. Even the wise and kind Siblings of Saint Hypatia of Alexandria could use a pair of strong hands and a faithful heart.

    And word was passed via a devout merchant to some of those who could get word to the Podesta.