July 11th, Constantinople
Late Evening
Captain eyed the receding Germans and the broken furniture tiredly. He was almost grateful for the morose, shadowed figures that lined the walls of the tavern, and the giant who stood still like a sentry on watch at the door. There was too much age in him now not to know, not to admit, how close he and several of his men had just come to death in the tavern where they had for so long taken drinks and swapped stories and shared tragedies together. At the hand of one of their own, who thought himself to be protecting the Company, who thought himself to be acting rightly, sensibly, to save his brothers-in-arms.
He could not stifle the thought, weary and lined as he was, that if Erik Jaeger, then any of them. In other mercenary companies, which rarely survived as long as this one had, he knew, there were constant struggles for loot and women and revenge. In King's Regiments, even, it was rare to find such camaraderie as he had forged and nurtured over so many years.
He remembered vividly the discipline Syban had exerted with an unyielding rigor, which kept his much larger band in tight and working order for over a decade. But then only the enormous profits the men reaped without end kept them from taking flight, from mutinying. The Free Company had not known such rooms of gold in all its existence, yet without quartering and tying his men, he would hazard they were more fiercely loyal than he himself had been in the worst days of the Armenian campaign.
And that was itself a danger.
Battles over the preservation, not of one's own well-being or one's own avarice, but the squadron, the army, the fleet. The very thing that made them the finest warriors-for-hire in Europe, their at-call navy, their bases in Italy, their ties to power and powerful dynasties, bound them together like a tribe. Their reputation made them proud and fearful, united them and tore them apart, except that their divisions could not be resolved with dissolution and fresh blood. No one would leave, not for good.
The Free Company was a way of life. It was a family, and where it went, home went too. And now he was afraid of what that meant. They would kill for each other, die for each other, make toasts to each other, and a moment later find themselves at fearsome odds, like siblings and mates, except heavily armed.
It was rare, and it came when they were against the fiercest odds, but once it started...
Lochlan's face had been stricken. He was now sick with fever, having his bone set, and they had yet to face the hundred thousand men at the walls. It was the largest gathering of soldiers he had seen in nearly thirty years-it was led in force by the most devious opponent they had faced since St. Malo. Then, too, blood was spilt between comrades, but then the danger had just passed over. There was time to recuperate and heal old wounds. Now, their enemy was far from dead.
But, thinking about it, the similarities were eerie, the fight was nearly catastrophic. He could remember every word...
"Ah, Heloise, darling, I see you've met Syban's daughter, Annette?" Guillaume asked, ignoring the ruckus behind him.
Heloise glared at him. And he suddenly realized that he preferred the brawl behind his back to the one in front of his face.
But when Forster's man had his beer knocked over in his face, he sat there stunned for a second, then he realized who had done it. The fact that Guillaume had not even stopped to say he was sorry did even more to convince the men at the table that Guillaume and his buddies just didn't give a damn about them or their lieutenant. Almost as if on cue they all jumped up at once.
Guillaume, being unusually distracted, never saw it coming. Once second he was talking to Heloise, the next he was out cold on the floor, having been hit on the head with a beer stein. That was it, the whole place went up in an uproar. Fights broke out all over the room. Mostly the cavalry against anyone even closely related to Guillaume, Sean or the scouts.
Guillaume, of course, was not aware of the scene that occurred next as both women dropped to their knees to take care of the poor man.
Syban smirked at the two fuming women and the clearly outmatched warrior for just a moment, and then, seeing the rush at Guillaume, stood sharply. All of the age that had made him seem pitiable to most of the Free Company men slid from his skin, his bones and his eyes all at once, like a cocoon opening to reveal the butterfly... Except that the old codger was anything but a butterfly.
He was too late, as the other man slid to the floor, followed by two frantic women. His eyes moved from the limp form to the chaos in the tavern and, in a rare moment, he lost his temper.
"Stop." His voice was eerily calm and so faint that the brawling men strained to hear it. And in that effort the trance was broken, leaving their fury distant and manageable, if still lingering in the background.
Syban strolled easily to the center of the room and looked from one side to the other.
"If you fools wish a fight, it'll be with this stooped old man."
"Git yerself gone, sir, lest ye git kilt interferin' in affairs that donna concern ye." The Georgian turned to face one of Sean's more aggressive countrymen and smiled gently, as if to a child.
"I have no intention of getting killed." He smiled less gently and drew a short sword bearing the crest of King Henry V. "This is a gift from one friend to another, but, under the circumstances, I doubt either would mind if it was used to cleave that thick head from your shoulders."
There was a ghastly pause, in which only Captain could detect the man's reluctance. It wasn't a bluff, but it wasn't a happily or lightly made threat either.
"Look at that man," Syban said coldly, "lying helpless where he stood, blood pouring from a wound inflicted, not by a battlefield enemy, but Quite the opposite-attacked after dinner by the comrades whose lives he's saved countless times. I promise you all, if this continues, that not a one of you will leave here by the power of your own legs."
He waited, silently willing them not to force his hand.
There was no motion in the room, all the attention focused on Captains old friend. Lochlan moved along the outskirts of the hushed crowd, the only one's who noticed him were Syban who made the slightest motion with his head, and Captain, who tossed him one of the signals he painstakingly learned from the scouts. "Go." was all it was. Lochlan nodded, and to all watching seemed to simply appear at the edge of the crowd.
The scout sergeant took two steps that seemed to last forever. Then he pivoted and stood facing his own men. He could feel Syban turning to completely face the cavalrymen. The scouts and Seans men seemed to shrink back before Lochlan, his eyes bored holes in each of them one by one, making ice seem warm, and fire cold. "Back to quarters." He said softly into the stillness. When no one moved he added a monosyllable. "Now."
"If the children are finished with their play, I should very much like to speak seriously with you, Sir Robert."
The voice was prim and conceited, and it brought Captain out of his reverie with a start. Around him the men had begun sorting out the tables and chairs, laughing together at the silly knights fully armored in the midsummer heat. Quietly, carefully, to avoid offending the titan in the doorway, but laughing nonetheless.
He smiled for a moment. "No, the Company heals fast-if Lochlan does, so will they."
"Pardon?"
Captain grimaced as he focused on the young man, regaled in Venetian tights and an Italian beret. This son was not the father, though the resemblance, the handsome lines and sharp eyes, the olive complexion, was striking, even though he had not known Syban at that age. But there were no scars, no marks of life at all, as though Venerio had been born at twenty-five.
"I have been patient, sir, but there is much business remaining, and I would like to enjoy the baths of Rome while I'm here."
No, not the father at all. He had chosen to accept the hospitality of the Emperor, and now resided in the palace itself. It was thanks for the long service Syban had provided over the years-a thanks that would've been politely declined by the Georgian himself.
"Yes, I imagine you would. But, if you hadn't noticed, much has transpired in the last few moments and..."
"Perhaps this will tell you why I'm here," Venerio broke in, withdrawing a sealed packet from the fold in his flamboyantly colored tunic. Captain took it hesitantly, until he noticed the seal, stamped in the unmistakable signet of his mentor. A cross in red ink.
"The old bastard." He opened it happily, taking comfort in the harsh lines of his youth. It was such a joy to hear from the living dead he nearly read it aloud, until he came to understand its purpose.
Robert,
I hope this note finds you well, though in my aged heart I know it cannot. The dangers that beset you, my old friend, it pains me to imagine, and it is my fervent hope, my plea, that you withdraw from that doomed city before the Sultan has time to unleash the unwitting menace of F.P., if he has not already by the time J. and V. arrive. The defensive works I myself had the privilege to oversee will do you no service in the face of these new weapons. If no one else has had the courage to say it, I say it now: your cause is hopeless, and if my sins did not long haunt me in that T. cottage, I would have done whatever was in my power to stop you from this madness.
But my words are in vain, I know. It is the shame of Fortuna, that devilish beast-woman, that I have only now discovered your plight. The days are too short to send the help that is forever at my disposal, the help for which Annette and Constance so lately have asked. The help for which you may have asked, through them. I would send all the treasure of Florence, if I thought it could save you.
But there will be no army, and there will be no fleet. I cannot even come myself, which was my daughter's most heated request, for the evils of Italy have reemerged from under my careless thumb, and it obliges me to many debts. J.P. is dead, S. will no doubt find himself expelled from the lagoon, or, worse, banished forever to its sullied depths, before this letter even reaches you. C. and I are in F. now, searching for G., and seeking to open the headwaters of the Adriatic for your safe return. I am too old and too tired now, to command, and my relations with Murad have never been warm. There is nothing I can do for you there, and I see greater trouble than Constantinople's fall looming ahead.
But I have taken what steps I can, to secure the safety of the F.C. The first is my son, V., who is at your service, and though our enemies, F. premier among them, have destroyed him (yes, that is the force I have let grow), he will, I think, be of use to you. He is a student of C., and of Murad, and was long in the care of my lamented friend, Emperor Mehmed. He understands the Turks as thoroughly as I, and does not share even my fondness for that proud race. His influence among the V.Q., too, should not be discounted. I suggest you make use of him there, and wherever else you may.
The second is a bundle of letters in the care of my daughter, intended for my friends in the Ottoman Empire. Most notably, the Pasha of Smyrna and the Sultan's Grand Vizier, and the commander of the Turkish navy, which is, no doubt, blockading the Straits. In addition, there is a pass for the Russian Bey, my request that you and your men be allowed to return, disarmed but unscathed, to Italy, at my expense. I have asked her to make request of you before seeking means to distribute them amongst the recipients. But, as you know, she is unlikely to obey, and so I recommend you act quickly in either regard.
This is not all I wish to do, Robert, nor all I wish to say, but this means of communication is too tenuous, and my time in life is short. I have been too long at poetry, and too long gone from that city in which you now reside. I wish you safe return, and victory, whatever it means anymore, and give what prayers I have left in me to the Company, where they may be better used. I have sent a letter to my son-in-law, through his wife, but I did not have the spirit to write the inevitable good-byes to those others among your officers who have been dear to me. To L., in particular, whose bravery and keen mind I liked from the first, and all the rest, I hope against all odds.
And for you, my son, there is much to say...
But for now, all I can express is my regret. I am sorry, Robert, that I cannot do more, and for everything else.
-Cosimo d'Medici
There were tears standing in pools beneath Captain's eyes as he finished. It was from Syban, without question. The paranoid habit of disguising names, the clever reminiscences, the blunt style. And he signed it Cosimo d'Medici. There was no clearer sign.
He thought about a great deal all at once, but, ultimately, his danger brought him into another realm. He had not used names for the Turks either, and that meant something-that he wanted to name the offices, to incontrovertibly implicate certain members of the Sultan's Court, in case the ship had been captured. Whether they were real or not he would have to see, but that was something. Particularly because there was little or no chance he actually knew the Bey.
And the connections between Syban and the Ottoman Empire ran old and deep-he had been there. It may have been a message to Murad personally, in case of capture, something he couldn't define, or even recognize.
But at least Syban lived, and was striving to protect Italy, and the Company. He nearly wept in earnest, for he was too old, too, not to know the mercy there was in that. In old friends at your back. Particularly old friends like he and Catherine, Guillaume, Sforza.
At the proper moment Venerio put his slender, uncalloused hand on the Englishman's shoulder. He had no doubt it'd never held a sword in combat, but perhaps there was more to him after all. Intimate knowledge of the Venetian Quarter and the Turks could prove invaluable.
"I know I am not a substitute for my father, that I have known it all my life, but I shall do all I can to protect his interests. And his friends. If you'll let me."
