This Rough Magic

'They may be unnecessary after all, Dragorvich. My agent within the fortress has widened a good chink in the enemy's armor. In the meantime, see if you can make the north causeway at least passable by footmen, and light cavalry at a pinch.'

Dragorvich nodded, too relieved to ask many questions. 'I've had men on the dark nights sneaking as far as they can and then swimming across, to clear caltrops. A few have been shot, but they paint themselves with mud first. They're difficult to see. The shingle should be safe for cavalry from that point of view, anyway. The causeway . . . give me a week, Sire, two at the most. It'll be good enough. We can make a covered way with green cowhides on top and some sandbags. It won't stop all the fire but it should make it possible for us to push a number of men across.'

'That sounds excellent, Dragorvich. Don't make your preparations too obvious.'

'Very well, Sire.' He hesitated a moment. 'I have a request. I know the policy is to get these peasants back onto the land, but I am desperately short of labor. If there is any trouble, can I have some of the troublemakers? We'll put them in leg irons and use them up at the front. They're likely to die, but rather them than my sappers.'

'An excellent idea. I'll let Ionlovich know. Don't spare them. They're not in that short a supply.'

* * *

That had been ten days ago. Dragorvich had gotten his peasant-prisoners and had achieved all he'd promised. In the darkness his men had been readying the causeway to take a push of several thousand footmen, mostly Slav pikemen, and a number of Croat light cavalry units, who had been forming up since dusk. Dragorvich wished he knew exactly what the king had planned. It was plainly treachery from within the Citadel, and plainly on the northern side, presumably with someone on the postern there.

In the meantime, the new mines had been started anyway. He had reluctant Corfiote slaves to do that work now. And the cannons still kept up their volleys against the walls. The walls—so far—hadn't crumbled much. The trouble with bombarding Corfu's Citadel was that so much of the fortress was made of natural rock. You could eventually pound a breach in it, but it was harder than mortised stone.

* * *

Sergeant Boldo looked up at the duty rosters above him. The current roster had been made out by that ass, Captain Querini again, he noticed. Lazy bastard just crossed out the month. Oh, well.

'My name is there, Sergeant,' said the young Libri d'Oro buck languidly. 'See.'

Sergeant Boldo shrugged, and handed the young man a curfew pass. 'Password for tonight is 'nightingale.' '

This new system of Commander Leopoldo's was a pain in the bollocks. Still, orders were orders, and the man was reasonable. After the chaos of the first week, the commander had given week-passes instead of daily ones for those who worked nights, whom he—and some mysterious other—approved. The recipients had to learn the week's worth of passwords and two of the Arsenalotti masters had ended up in the brig for the rest of the night because they'd forgotten them. The sergeant had expected them to kick up a stink the way the scuolo usually did when they thought their territory was being infringed, but they'd been sour but reasonable about it.

* * *

Umberto got up for the midnight-to-dawn guard shift when Alberto Mavroukis tapped gently on the window. Alberto was one of those rare individuals who could fall asleep at the blink of an eye—at any opportunity—and yet had an internal clock that could wake him when he needed to. Alberto and Umberto were two of the ten masters from the Little Arsenal who were recipients of week-passes for this new curfew system. Though its purpose was to allow them to work late, it also meant he could sleep at home if he was on guard with Alberto. Sleeping next to a warm, soft-skinned Maria was infinitely preferable to sleeping in the north wall guard barracks.

The two walked down the dark cobbles. As luck would have it they ran into a bored, small-minded guard, who refused to accept their week-passes and insisted on taking them to his guard commander at gunpoint. The guard commander was in the throes of waking the next shift, and it took a great deal of Umberto's patience to get them, late, heading for the guard barracks on the north curtain-wall. The bells were already chiming for midnight before they were halfway down there.

'That bastard of a guard commander will probably make us sleep there next time,' panted Alberto.

'He'll just chew us out,' said Umberto, and saved his breath for running. The two arrived at the guard barracks.

Both realized immediately that something was very, very wrong.

The guard barracks was silent. It should have been full of people getting their gear off and lying down to rest, earlier watches griping about the noise.

Umberto looked at Alberto. Then he took the issue rapier out of its scabbard and walked forward into the lamplight.

The guard commander wasn't going to chew anyone out. Or make them sleep in the barracks. He lay in a pool of his own blood.

'Merde!' said big Alberto, in a very small voice. 'What the hell do we do now?'

'Raise the alarm!' Umberto took a deep breath.

'Keep quiet or I'll shoot,' said a voice from the shadows.

Umberto yelled. 'ALARU . . .'

He felt rather than heard the shot.

As he fell he saw in a sort of strange slow way how the big caulker had grabbed someone with a pistol. He saw Alberto fling the willowy, elegantly dressed young man at a second man. And Alberto was bellowing at the top of his vast lungs.

* * *