"Also, I think I'd better go with him."
Manfred shook his head. "Francesca wants you here."
Benito took a deep breath, and began his plea. He knew he would have a very limited time to convince Manfred of what he needed to do before it was too late to do it.
"I believe I can get a message back to Venice, Manfred. Francesca is capable of all of her schemes without a little guy like me. I'd rather stay and fight. I'd rather go out with Erik and organize guerillas. But I believe my duty to Venice, to Petro Dorma, is to get back to Venice. Magicians can send word to the fleets, warning them. Venice itself can prepare to relieve Corfu. I believe I've got an idea of how it could be done, without going through the Balkans."
Francesca nodded and smiled. "If you could do that, it would be worth more to us than your skills in fraternizing with lowlifes would be."
"Ha. How come I can't do the fraternizing with lowlifes while Erik is away?" protested Manfred, assuming an expression of hurt. "I've got years of experience!"
Francesca smiled. "Because as a leadership figure we need the people, all the people, to look up to you."
"Spoilsport!" muttered Manfred. "Mind you, Benito mentioned an option I hadn't even thought of: Eneko Lopez." Manfred grinned. "Maybe we can keep your low-life fraternizer here after all. If the clerics can send magical word, the taverns of the Citadel will not have to lose such a valued customer."
Eneko Lopez shook his head tiredly. "No. Magically we are hamstrung. We have tried, repeatedly, together and separately, to invoke the guardian archangels of the cardinal points. One simply does not respond. The angels did . . . once, for a minor magic. Since then we have failed."
Eneko sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I do not know what magical knowledge you have, but this is fundamental. We
must
operate behind our protections. As well for a knight to go into battle having forgotten to armor himself. Still, we ventured on a harmless minor spell to see what would happen. A blessing on the flowers around the church. Magic has a feel to it, Manfred. This was like wading through thigh-deep mud. There is something here, about this place . . . not so much opposition to us, as a simple resistance. In the end, the magic we worked was words. Merely words, nearly without substance."
"Chernobog?" asked Manfred, thinking of the terrible powers they had defeated in Venice. "Or something like that?"
Eneko shook his head, a puzzled frown on his face. "No. I have encountered various nonhuman powers. Chernobog . . . This is as unlike that as is possible. The Black Brain is a violent and malevolent force. It is unlike the Lion of Etruria, too. That has a personality, a shape. This seems amorphous, unfocused—almost as if it had lost its focus, somehow. But one thing is certain: It, too, is our enemy, if only because it does not love us at all." He sighed. "It must however have human agents. We'll try to find those. But I wish I could contact Rome. There are magic-workers in the service of the Grand Metropolitan who are as far beyond my brothers and me as we are beyond a charm-seller."
Benito had never been entirely at ease with the intense cleric, which, considering how they had met, was not surprising. "I'm thinking of trying to get a smuggler or a fishing boat to drop me across on the Italian shore, Father Eneko. I'll make my way overland to Venice. Do you want me to try and deliver any messages?"
Eneko's dour expression lifted. "I will prepare letters. Perhaps . . ."
"I don't think I want anything in writing," Benito interrupted. "I'm going to have to go as a fisherman or a common sailor. I don't want to get searched and have embarrassing things turn up. Dorma will believe me without such evidence."
Eneko nodded. "Yes. I quite see that." He exhaled through his teeth. "Unfortunately, the Grand Metropolitan might respond to something written in my fist, whereas a traveling youngster like yourself is just not going to get an interview with the Grand Metropolitan."
He smiled wryly. "It is difficult enough for high potentates to do so. I think the best possible thing would be for you to proceed straight to Venice. There you could speak to Siblings Mascoli of St. Raphaella or Evangelina of St. Hypatia di Hagia Sophia. Your brother can establish your credentials with the former and Katerina with the latter." Eneko raised the bar of eyebrow again. "I don't think they'd recognize you from your regular visits for counseling."
Manfred's shoulders shook. "If you want messages to the tap-man at Barducci's . . . that's a priest and a chapel more likely to recognize him."
Eneko cracked a wan smile at this. "This is probably the case of the pot calling the kettle black, Prince."
Manfred shrugged. "Meaning no offense, but the way I see it the average barman has the experience of life to make him a better counselor than the average oblate who has grown into a cloistered monk. Anyway, what do you want Benito to tell these priests? I want him to get some rest before this next stunt of his."
Eneko nodded as Benito yawned copiously. "He should be at his sharpest for such a venture, and he doesn't look it."
"A couple of hours and I'll be fine." Benito yawned again. "I've just got to track down that Corfiote seaman that guided me onto a rock, coming in."
"I'll see to that," said Manfred firmly. "You are heading for bed. Alone, too. Get along with you."
When Manfred spoke like that, one went. So Benito went. Even the thought of the coming venture couldn't keep him awake.
Far above in the blue, two hawks circled.
Bjarni knocked Kari's arm up hastily. The shot ricocheted off the limestone rocks, and Svanhild winced. Thank goodness Bjarni had more sense than the rest of them, or they'd soon be fighting both the locals and the invaders. And the locals knew this area like the rabbits in the rocks did.
"What the hell do you think you are doing, you idiot!"
"But chief, he threw a rock at us!" protested the young Vinlander.
"Of course he threw a rock at us, you mindless fool! And now we'll be lucky if the locals don't shoot at us. You shoot at the Hungarians. They already shoot back. The kids throwing rocks we wave at and shout 'friend, friend!' "
"And when they throw more rocks?" growled Gulta, wiping the blood off his face. "The little devil hit me."
"Duck faster next time," Bjarni said flatly. "If a kid with a rock can hit you, you aren't paying near enough attention to what's going on. You can't hit anything with wheel-lock pistols anyway, more than a few paces off. And there's no way to use an arquebus on horseback."
But Bjarni's orders were unnecessary. Word must have run up the valleys ahead of them. Nobody threw rocks. And there was nobody they could shout "friend, friend" at either. Locals seeing them ran.
"Maybe we should ride one of them down," suggested Kari. "We could explain afterwards."
Bjarni snorted. "You should be thinking of this as if it were the plains around Cahokia and you were a foreigner chasing your mother's people. This is their place. Their rocks and paths. Ten to one they'd get away from you here. And if they did that, then the fat would really be in the fire. No, we'll find a spot to fort up and sit tight until things settle down. They'll come to us in time."
They rode on. Toward evening they came to a gorge. Kari pointed. "You won't let me shoot rock-throwers. Can I shoot us some dinner instead?"
Bjarni looked up. "Sure. I never was that fond of goats anyway."
Kari missed again. Twice. In the end, laughing, Svanhild used her bow to kill the goat.
Meanwhile, scouting ahead, Gulta had found them a cave. "They use part of it for penning goats. There's another section where we can sleep. It isn't luxury accommodation, but it is better than the houses in the burned-out villages we've passed. At least, the cave's still got a roof. There's a lot of cloud about, too. It looks like it could come on to rain."
"Is it defensible?" Svanhild asked. Other considerations no longer applied.
Bjarni shrugged. "Is anything?"
Manfred knocked on Erik's door. There was no reply. He knocked again, waited, and then was about to turn his heel and leave when Erik said: "Come in."
Erik was seated in a chair by the window staring out. He turned to see just who had come to disturb him, with a look that said it would be the worse for them. "Oh. Manfred. I thought it would be some servant or orderly or something. I've had a chambermaid and a page come looking for you, all in the last hour."
"I've come to talk to you about this Svanhild."
Erik sighed. "Yes. I'm sorry, Manfred. I've let myself be distracted from my task. It's just . . . I wish . . . Well, I can't. I'll try to put it aside. My oath comes first."
Manfred grinned, hiding emotions far from humor. "Besides, as a confrere Knight of the Holy Trinity you are supposed to be celibate and not think such things. Listen, I have talked it over with Francesca and young Benito." Manfred chose his words now with extreme care. "You are sworn by clan-oath to be my personal hearthman. To guard me and also prepare me for the possibility that I might become heir to the throne of Charles Fredrik. To keep me alive. To take appropriate long-term steps to make sure this happens."
Erik nodded, dully. It was a matter of note on his mental state that he did not snap that he knew all of this. "Yes. That is my duty."
"If my bodyguard—you, that is—arrived with a severe chill or was injured—I'd send him to bed until he was well enough to be effective. I'd use another bodyguard if he insisted." Manfred waited for a response.
"I would insist, if I was sick." Erik did not even look indignant.
"Who would you nominate?"
Erik shrugged. "Von Gherens, I suppose. Or Falkenberg, had he not been injured."
Manfred nodded. "I will have both of them. Falkenberg, if he recovers. Because you
are
sick. I'm sending you off to get cured. Benito, a Corfiote seaman and you are taking a small boat out tonight. You will go and see if this sweetheart of yours is alive. Come back when you're well."
Erik gaped at him. And then closed his mouth and shook his head. "I can't do that."
Manfred had come prepared for that. "Your responsibilities go beyond those of some simple day-to-day bodyguard, Erik. You're responsible for my long-term safety. How would you best ensure that?"
"Putting you in a padded cell and feeding you through the keyhole," said Erik, still staring at him.
"Be serious, will you? Besides, Uncle Charles Fredrik said I'm supposed to go to Jerusalem. How would I do that in a cell? The answer is breaking this siege. And the answer to that is getting word back to Venice. And that's exactly what I want Benito to do. But without you he'll probably fail."
Was Erik following all this? It was impossible to tell from that poleaxed look on his face. "Look, his plan relies on sneaking out of here in a small boat lowered from the seaward walls. But the rest of Emeric's troops and cannon have arrived. You can bet Emeric has shore patrols aplenty out now, especially after last night. The boy's a fighter, but he's not in your league. And he doesn't have your experience of small craft. He's Venetian, but a city-dwelling landsman, really."
Now, finally, he was getting a reaction out of Erik; the Icelander nodded, slightly. Manfred went in for the kill.
"But the crunch is that he's got to move overland by night to a fishing port, well away from here. The boy can move around a city like a ghost. But I don't think he's ever been outside a city. He'll get killed for sure if you don't go along with him. Once you've got him safe—you can give your time to hunting for Svanhild." Manfred paused. "But Erik . . . my friend, you do know what usually happens to beautiful young women when an army invades."
Erik nodded. "Yes. She may be dead, or she may be raped and enslaved. But . . . I have to know." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't accept your logic. What you say about Benito and a message to Venice makes excellent sense, even if you are using it as an excuse. But I can't desert my post."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Manfred sat down on the bed. It complained. Beds generally complained when Manfred sat on them. "I didn't want to do this. I've lugged this around since Venice."
Manfred hauled a letter out of his pouch. It was plainly much traveled. He unfolded it. "Here. Come and have a look at this. Uncle Charles Fredrik sent it to me when things started to unravel in Venice."
Erik came over. The letter dangled half of the seal of the Holy Roman Empire. The sprawling spidery handwriting was unmistakably that of the Holy Roman Emperor himself.
"Read from the top of this paragraph," commanded Manfred.
Erik did.
Manfred, The most valuable coin the House of Hohenstauffen has is loyalty. The house has no coin of a larger denomination than the loyalty of Clann Harald. The reason is simple: they owe their loyalty not to the Empire, or the Emperor. They owe it to us. The Hohenstauffen. The Clann have repaid their debt to the Hohenstauffen many hundreds of times over. Yet they still answer the call. Why, nephew? First, it is because they're raised and bred to it. They're a very honorable house, even by the standards of a very honorable society. But that is the lesser of the reasons. The reason is that they are our friends—because we are as loyal to them as they are to us. Always remember that. An Imperial house has very few true friends. They are more valuable to us than to ordinary folk for that reason. In every generation the time has always come when we, the Hohenstauffen, must put that friendship, that loyalty to our friends, above all other obligations. Do not fail me in this, Manfred. When the time comes, you will place Erik's interests above your own. I order this. Do not fail me or our house.
"I'm not going to fail him," said Manfred grimly. "You
will
be on that boat this evening. This is not a matter of duty, Erik. It is a matter of friendship. I won't see you dying by inches in front of my eyes with your heart somewhere over those walls."
Erik stood up, came to stand before Manfred and put his hands on Manfred's shoulders. "Thank you," he said, gruffly. "I was . . . not happy when the summons came for me to come to Mainz to serve. Willing, because it is our sworn duty. But not happy. Our regard for the Empire isn't high in Iceland, or Vinland either for that matter. My father said something to me then that I didn't understand at the time. He said:
You will find it is not service
."