Much Fall of Blood-ARC (10 page)

"Goodness. I wonder what those are for. Perhaps for chaining a dog or something. I was merely joking, Vlad. I did not want to trouble you with that sad business last night. The poor girl was possessed of an evil spirit. We had to scourge her and pray with her to exorcise it."

"Oh. I will include her in my prayers, then," said Vlad. "Is she free of it now? Will she be all right?"

"She will recover. Pain is a necessary part of the process," said the countess. "Do you really have to have the curtains open, Prince? Of course I am a weak woman and not as robust as you. The breeze is so injurious to a lady's complexion. It's almost as bad as the sun."

"Once they cross they Danube we must strike," said Angelo. "If we let her get him to her fortress we will never get him away from her. Even another night could be too late."

"They will take a ferry. We could sink it, and snatch him from the flotsam." Grigori grinned, showing very white teeth.

Angelo shook his head. "She has a bargain with the Vila."

"Then we need to plan to get across by boat," said Radu. "Besides, Grigori, you get tired after swimming half a league."

The crowd of voivodes and hetmen in his throne room were doing their best to look brave and great. To the iron eyes that looked out at them from Jagiellon's mask, they were neither. They were, however, the right sort of tools for his tasks. Greed and fear made great levers to drive them about his purposes. He kept them in balance between fear of their fellows and fear of him. And when he called, they came, like the cowed dogs they were.

Of course, there were a few who had attempted to avoid the summons with various excuses, and had sent representatives. They would be punished appropriately. They entertained something Chernobog disapproved of, and did his best to eradicate: the folly of hope.

Still, there was one emissary whose master could not be punished. Or, at least, could not be punished . . . yet. The fact that the emissary was here, and being seen in public, was an endorsement of sorts, as the remains of the Golden Horde were not yet vassals. But soon they, and the Bulgar Slavs, would fall in line. Constantinople and Alexius posed no challenge. Chernobog's geo-political machinations followed a very different logic from that of his merely mortal foes.

There was power in the geography, both on a physical and a spiritual plane. Other powers and their minions, such as that accursed Elizabeth Bartholdy, did not fully grasp that. They would. But by then it would be too late.

"Nogay Tarkhan." Jagiellon greeted the emissary with what for him was considerable affability. The man still stood too straight. He bowed. He had not abased himself. "And what news from Gatu Khan?"

"He still remains Gatu Orkhan. The kurultai broke apart before his election could be finalized."

Jagiellon stood up slowly. He was a huge man and he towered over the tarkhan. He turned to the assembled lords of all of the vassal tribes and states to the east and south. "You are all dismissed," he said. "The tarkhan and I have things to discuss privately."

Nogay stood stock still, perhaps alarmed by the hasty departure of the others. Some of them were known to him. Many of the southern clans which owed fealty to Jagiellon were blood relations of the clans within the remnant of the Golden Horde that lived on the western shore of the Black Sea. The Crimean Tatar were close kin. They were intermarried too with Bessarabians under Jagiellon's sway.

When they were alone, Jagiellon resumed his seat. He had stood solely for the purpose of intimidating the tarkhan with his immense size. That done—satisfactorily, he gauged—he had no desire to remain on his feet. The Black Brain found the grand duke useful, and the man had become so heavy in middle age that standing for any length of time risked damaging his lower limbs.

As he lowered himself into the throne, a slight scuttling noise drew his attention to the side. A rat had emerged from a hole in a corner of the throne room and was staring at him, its whiskers twitching with caution.

Caution only, not fear. Rats had little to fear in the grand duke of Lithuania's palace. As a matter of policy, Jagiellon made only minimal attempts to suppress the rodents. He kept just enough feral felines to prevent the rats from overrunning the palace altogether. He—or rather, the demon who controlled him—found that a multitude of rats had the effect of frightening his subjects, in a subtle kind of way. Perhaps they feared their overlord might feed them to the rats in the cellars.

As, indeed, he had done on a number of occasions.

Once the grand duke's eyes moved away, Mindaug sent the rat scurrying along the wall. As soon as Jagiellon began to speak, he would have the rat move close enough to overhear the conversation.

Mindaug leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed, visualizing the scene in far-off Vilna through the rat's eyes. There was some peril here, of course. Mindaug would be subjected to considerable pain in the event Jagiellon took notice of the rat again and decided to kill it.

That was a minor danger, however. First, because it was unlikely that the grand duke would succeed in such a project. As a young man, Jagiellon had been a truly formidable physical specimen. His reflexes had been astonishing for someone his size. But age and sedentary habits—not to mention his gross culinary indulgences—had added so much fat to his frame that, though still immensely strong, he was no longer as quick as he'd been years earlier.

The grand duke was still surprisingly quick, for such a huge man. But not likely to be quick enough to catch a rodent. Even if he did, the pain inflicted upon Mindaug would be intense but brief. And there would be no lasting damage. The method Mindaug was using to control the rat had some problems. The effort of controlling the noxious little creature was considerable; the effort of trying to filter meaningful words through its tiny brain harder still. After two hours, Mindaug would be mentally exhausted. But the great advantage was that Mindaug could sever his connection with the rat—or have it severed by another—without suffering any permanent injury.

No, the real danger lay with the Black Brain, not the monster's human shell. There was always the possibility that Chernobog's suspicion would be aroused, should he notice that a rat in his palace was behaving oddly. The demon himself was not given to using small animals as spies. Those methods were too humble and subtle to appeal to his basic nature. However, he would know that such was possible, for someone with sufficient knowledge and skill.

There weren't many in the world who had that knowledge and skill. But Chernobog was likely to know that his former servant Count Mindaug was one of them—and he had a grudge against Mindaug. Which was reasonable enough, of course, given that Mindaug had betrayed him.

Should the Black Brain come alert, there was the real possibility that his demonic powers—which, unlike his human sheath's body, was not subject to fat and unexercised muscles—could move fast enough to catch Mindaug before he could extricate himself from the rodent. Should that happen . . .

Well. The result would be most unfortunate. The best Mindaug could hope for was that Chernobog would be satisfied with locking the count into his rodent form with no hope of escape. In which case, Mindaug's lifespan would become that of a rat—two years; three, at best—and, still worse, it would be a life emptied of all interest. Even if Mindaug could maintain his intelligence in those circumstances, which he thought dubious beyond a few weeks, what good would it do him?

Count Mindaug's great interest and passion was knowledge, and knowledge required the ability to read. It was hard enough to make sense of spoken words through a rat's little brain. Mindaug had never been able to get one of the wretched rodents to learn how to read. That was their greatest limitation as spies.

Cats were worse. Dogs, hopeless. Some day Mindaug planned to experiment with owls. In addition to their superb eyesight, he thought their talons might be suitable for turning pages.

He had the rat right behind the monster, now. He commanded the little creature to scuttle underneath the throne and then hold perfectly still. Partly, to avoid any risk of detection; mostly, so Mindaug could concentrate on the coming task. Filtering sense through a rat's brain really was quite difficult.

Later, after the grand duke had finished with his agent in the Golden Horde, Jagiellon called for the voivode from Odessa and the admiral from the secret vast shipyards he had built close to the mouth of the Dniepr where his fleet was being assembled.

The voivode had no doubts about the fragility of his position, but he had news that he believed would please his master. "We have begun pressing sailors, Grand Duke. They are river men mostly, but at least they have been on board a vessel before. We have thirty round ships and some seven galleys, and nearly forty galleasses now outfitted. The galleasses are doing patrols already with the other vessels and the crews are learning their trade."

"I will send fresh levees. Ten more galleys must be in the water before winter," ordered Jagiellon.

The voivode bowed. "It will be done, Prince."

"The men to be transported on the round ships will begin to arrive in the last weeks of March. See that their the camps are prepared."

"Could I ask the numbers, Prince?"

"Some thirty thousand. That will be adequate for the purpose. The first four thousand will arrive with the barge fleet from Kievan Rus with the cordage and sailcloth. Now go. I am going to select from the candidates who have been sent down from the north."

The voivode of Odessa looked both curious and afraid. As well he might, Jagiellon thought. The man was too efficient for his own good. Unfortunately, he was also too efficient to kill right now.

This was a problem for Jagiellon, and one which he had become faced with all too frequently. Ruthless ambition and greed had provided some of his best vassals, but such a vassal always wanted to be overlord. It was necessary to watch them, intimidate them, and occasionally reduce their ranks. This voivode was very close to that brink.

The grand duke was not overly concerned with the matter, however. In long years, only Count Mindaug had succeeded in escaping the Black Brain's culling. And someday he expected to catch Mindaug and be finally done with him.

Mindaug kept the rat hidden under the throne until well after nightfall. Then, let an hour pass after the grand duke left the chamber before he had the rat emerge.

That done, he sent the rodent in search of one of the palace's handful of cats. That took no more than five minutes.

The feline was presumably surprised to find a rat doing all but leaping into its maw, but its brain was not big enough to retain the memory for long. The chance that the Black Brain would detect anything amiss was essentially non-existent. Even the chance that Chernobog would have detected the lingering traces of Mindaug's presence in the rat had been miniscule.

Miniscule—but not non-existent. Mindaug valued methodical caution above all other virtues.

The pain was intense, true. Cats were efficient killers, but not merciful ones. But the moment passed, soon enough, and Mindaug was able to concentrate on what he had learned.

He was not surprised by the scope of Chernobog's ambitions. Still, he had not realized how extensively the Black Brain had succeeded in penetrating the Golden Horde. Mongol society was not easily subverted by outsiders, even ones with the grand duke's powers.

That much was simply a matter of abstract interest, at the moment. But Mindaug could no longer ignore the possibility that his present refuge might become threatened. Countess Elizabeth was extraordinarily shrewd, but she had two intellectual blind spots.

The first—inevitable in such a foul creature—was that she had delusions concerning her ability to postpone forever having to pay the price for her bargain.

The second was that she consistently underestimated the sometime effectiveness of purely human political and military action. Mindaug thought that blind spot was also due to the creature's foul nature. No matter what methods were used, successful action in the political and military spheres required a great deal of effort. Among Elizabeth's multitude of vices, laziness took its rightful place also.

So. It was time for Mindaug to consider his alternatives.

Benito Valdosta read the message from Petro Dorma very carefully, for the third time. The orders contained therein came as something of a relief, in part. They would get him away from a myriad of petty problems, and might stop him from murdering some Libri d'Oro idiot.

On the other hand, the idea of leaving his wife and daughter while he led a naval campaign was considerably less than attractive. However, unless he misread the time line, it could just work out. The Byzantine emperor would be expecting both trouble and relief in spring. If Benito had his way, he'd have trouble long before. In autumn, if possible. There was always the risk of storms. On the other hand it would be a very unwelcome surprise for His Imperial Idiocy.

It could be a worse surprise for the fleet in the Dniepr. The most serious flaw in this plan could be the arrival of the Golden Horde. Benito wished that he had more knowledge of what was happening in the lands of the Golden Horde, to the west of the Black Sea. He began to toy with the idea of spying or at least surveillance, possibly from the lands of Iskander Beg. He wondered just how Petro Dorma had come by all his information in the first place, and if Benito would be able to access those channels. The old established order in Venice tended to regard him as a loose cannon. "I can't imagine why," he thought to himself, with a chuckle, getting up to go and collect a map of Constantinople from a cupboard. He could imagine Admiral Douro's delight at the news that Benito Valdosta was coming back to the Arsenal.

However, that was a trivial problem compared to the one he was going to face when he broke this news to Maria. That would require a lot more than mere military tactical skill. It might just involve the ability to dodge flying china. Living with Maria could be a lot of things, but it certainly was never dull. He considered the best possible ways of approaching the subject. Regretfully, he decided that sneaking off without telling her probably would not be worth the pain. In the end, the truth might just serve him best, even though he doubted that it would serve him very well.