This Rough Magic

She sensed the vibration first. Looking down, she saw that her feet—feet? what were those horrid claw-like things?—were planted on one such cable. The cable seemed to be undulating. As if some great weight had been placed upon it.

She twisted her body—awkwardly, since she was unaccustomed to its new shape—and saw that a monster was moving toward her along the cable. Like a great spider, except for the face.

It was the face that finally broke what was left of Bianca Casarini's self-control. For some reason, the sight of a middle-aged man's face on such a monster—except that he possessed mandibles as well as jaws—was more horrifying than anything else.

Worst of all, was the look of bleak despair in the man's eyes. Utter and complete despair, such as Bianca had never seen before—not even in the eyes of her own victims.

Crocell was a much better cheater than you were, Bianca. Oh, much better. That's why he gets a privileged position here. So to speak.

As I said, I even let him out now and then. A privilege which, I'm afraid, you'll not be enjoying.

Bianca fled down the cable, shrieking silently. She could feel the cable thrumming beneath her feet, under the treads of something much heavier than she.

Oh, please, Bianca! Have no fear—after he sucks out your juices, I'll replenish them again. It's agonizingly painful, of course, but not terminal in the least.

If only she could scream!

No, no, not in the least bit terminal. Even though you were planning to cheat me, I'm not at all vengeful. Despite what you may have heard.

If only she could scream!

You wanted eternal life, Bianca Casarini. And now you have it.

If only she could scream!

As food.

 

PART XIV January, 1540 a.d.

Chapter 94

'They've landed on Vidos Island!'

Like everyone else, Benito scrambled out of bed and rushed for a viewpoint of the island off to the northeast of the Citadel. Benito eyed the beached vessels on the island with impotent fury. The castle's defenders were firing, but it was obviously too little and far too late.

Vidos Island had guarded the northern sea access to the Citadel. Now, with the island obviously under heavy attack, the people of the fortress realized that there would be no place that would be entirely free from cannon fire. There would be no respite. The cannon from Vidos would not be able to hit the Citadel, but the Byzantine fleet would now be able to sail into that area and shell the Citadel without coming under direct fire from both flanks.

Benito strode off in search of Manfred. He found him standing with Erik contemplating the situation grimly. 'They're in the outer walls of the island already,' said the Icelander. 'The keep might hold out a while, but it won't be for too long.'

'And they'll be able to harry the northeast too.' Benito sighed. With Emeric's latest increase in bombardment on the city itself, rather than just the walls, much of the population had taken to at least sleeping over there. True, very few people had been killed by the cannon fire, but it was frightening and hurt morale. Knowing there was no place that they could truly get away from the possibility of a cannonball killing them—or, worse, their children—was going to dent morale even further. Emeric was slowly chipping away at the spirit of Citadel with starvation and fear.

'We need to strike back somehow.'

'A sortie is out of the question,' Manfred said. 'You two have forced Emeric to invest more in defense than he has in attacking capability. The shingle out there is a set of death traps for horses.'

'Then let's take it to the bastards by sea,' urged Benito. 'We've got the fireboats. If the keep on Vidos hasn't fallen by tonight, they'll have all their carracks bunched around the island, firing ship's cannon at the keep.'

Manfred cocked his head at Erik. 'You've looked at those cockleshells. What do you think?'

Erik nodded. 'Almost all of their larger cannon are on the carracks. The cannon on those carracks are what they've mostly been using to harass the Citadel from the sea with anyway. Burn them and you'll reduce their marine gunnery to a pitiful effort.'

'But will it work?'

Erik shrugged. 'Those little boats are works of shipbuilder's art, Manfred. They've got one weakness: they were built to run straight with the wind. If we can row them to a point where they're directly upwind, leave each of them with a slow-match and a dead bearing . . . well, it is going to be a question of how well we aim and how well we can judge the slow-match time. You'd be aiming a small boat at a small target a long way away. Most of them would miss. Still, it's worth trying. We're not going to get as many Byzantine ships so close together again. Get one of those little sailing bombs in among them and we'll likely see a fair number catch fire.'