Tales of Downfall and Rebirth (47 page)

And eventually Chadova's bloody head turned, and Foscari saw a promise in those green, inhuman eyes—a promise that this was not by any means over—and then the light in her eyes went out.

Foscari leaned on the chair and tried to catch his breath. His marines were standing around the room still half stunned, still trying to understand what had just happened. Chadova's two companions, unarmed and apparently without supernatural aid, had died quickly. And he'd lost two marines, one of them an officer, with a number of others wounded.

He turned to see the Afentiko in Serafina's arms—during the fight he had got out of his chair somehow, and Serafina had pulled him off into a corner. She was trying to staunch the flow of blood from the nose that had been broken by Chadova's kick.

Foscari straightened, took a breath, and limped over to the Afentiko. “Are you all right, Contessa?” he asked.

Serafina was still tidying her husband's face. She looked over her shoulder at Foscari, a ghost of fear still haunting her face.

“Demons,” she said. “I told you.”

“Was this the one you met earlier?”

“No. He was a man with”—she gestured toward her face—“with a red beard. Forked.”

“How many more of them are there?”

She turned back to her work. “God knows.”

The Afentiko took Serafina's handkerchief and held it to his nose. “You attacked an emissary,” he said.

“Yes,” Foscari said. “And treacherously, at that.”

The Afentiko gestured with his free hand. “Why? Spiridon will find it very hard to forgive.”

Foscari looked at Chadova's corpse. “Chadova tried, a bit crudely, to drive a wedge between us. I wanted to show everyone in this room—everyone in Rhodes—that I and the Republic are committed to your defense.”

And he wanted as well to force commitment from the Venetian Council. There were those at home who opposed Foscari's policy of expansion, who regretted the expense of the fleet that took ten thousand fit young men from the city for years at a time, and who might have tried to compromise with Spiridon, or even hand Rhodes to him in return for a nonaggression pact. Now an enraged Spiridon would prosecute a war with Venice and give the Republic no chance to back out, even if it wanted to.

Foscari turned back to the Afentiko. “At least she told us the enemy's plans.”

Kanellis was surprised. “Yes? How so?”

“She said they plan to capture the fleet and add it to their own. That means they intend to take the city quickly, by storm, and take our ships at the same time. Their blockade is here to keep us from escaping to sea.” He shook his head. “It won't be a siege, my friend. Spiridon plans to come right over your walls, just as he did at Lindos, with creatures like that”—he pointed to Chadova—“in the lead. Do you think your militia can face them?”

The Afentiko turned pale beneath the blood that stained his face. Foscari turned away from the blood on the floor and looked at the medallion, Demos Rodion, on the wall of the chamber.

“If not for the storm,” he said, “they could be here already.”

He turned to the Afentiko. “Thousands of refugees will be coming into the city and to the other old Crusader forts like Kritinia and Monolithos. You should take care that the enemy isn't among them—I wouldn't put it past Spiridon to send infiltrators into the city.”

The Afentiko nodded. “I'll take care. And I'll warn the militia captains about the . . .” Words failed him, and he nodded at Chadova. “Those.”

“Call them ‘champions,'” Foscari advised. “Words like ‘demon' or ‘djinn' might be too unsettling.”

The Afentiko nodded, then winced at sudden pain from his broken nose.

“And the official story,” Foscari said, “should be that Chadova attacked treacherously, not anyone else.”

Again the Afentiko nodded.

“I'll ready the fleet to sally tomorrow, before dawn,” Foscari said. “If we can hand them a severe enough defeat at sea, Spiridon's army may try to withdraw before they're stranded.” He shrugged. “And in any case, we can keep them from landing reinforcements.”

Serafina looked up from her ministrations.

“Go with God,” she said simply.

The other side seems to have the gods, Foscari thought. Little ones, anyway.

But he bowed, and thanked her for her concern, and then turned to see that the bloody mess was cleaned up.

*   *   *

The heads of Colonel Chadova and her two aides were delivered to the boat that awaited them off the mole. The sailors aboard the boat were horrified, but there was no immediate reaction from the enemy warships, which rowed off just before sunset, presumably so they could find some safe beach somewhere to run the galleys ashore and let the crews get some sleep.

Foscari was aboard
Agostino Barbarigo
by three in the morning to ready the fleet for war. Slow fires were lit below the tanks of Greek fire to make sure the jellied gasoline liquefied, and turns were taken at the pumps that filled the hydraulic reservoirs that would shoot the flaming gasoline at the enemy. The bows and forecastles of the ships were covered in hides, and the hides drenched in sea water to protect against Greek fire, their own as well as that of the enemy.

Stores and fresh water were carried aboard, and then the pilot Soteria was brought aboard to lead the fleet past the breakwater and into the open sea. The eastern sky was beginning to turn pale as
Barbarigo
first took the deep-sea rollers, and turned its prow toward the enemy. The other eleven galleys, each following the stern lantern of the ship ahead, trailed in an obedient line. The galley rowed east to clear the land, the lights of the city twinkling off its starboard quarter, and then the squadron arrowed southeast. The sewage-smell of the city was washed away by the rich scent of the sea.

Soteria remained aboard. Her thorough knowledge of the coastline might be useful, and for the occasion she'd equipped herself with a spear, shield, and an old Italian helmet dating from the Second World War.

At dawn Foscari raised three flags onto his poop to mark his ship as that of the
ammiraglio
. The central flag was that of Venice itself, with the winged Lion of St. Mark. The flag to port was Foscari's personal ensign, the silhouette of a black galley sailing on an indigo sea. And the flag to starboard was the banner of Unione Venezia, with a slightly different version of the winged lion.

The Cypriot fleet was not visible, no silhouettes on the pale eastern horizon, and no shadows skulking against the shoreline. Foscari could only hope they were sleeping late, and that he could trap them drawn up on the shore in some little cove.

Spray crashed over the bows as the
Barbarigo
knifed into a wave, and Foscari felt moisture on his face as far back as the poop. The sea had moderated since the previous day, but there was still a storm to the southeast that was pushing long lines of rollers straight into the galleys' teeth. The wind itself had veered southerly, bringing a faint scent of land, and was raising smaller waves that ran across the rollers like swarms of fish darting just below the surface.

That southerly wind could prove crucial, Foscari knew. You could spit Greek fire only downwind, and the enemy fleet would be coming with the wind behind them. If the Venetians used Greek fire against their enemies, it might get blown back in their faces.

The sun rose out of low clouds, and scarlet winked on the foam that flew from the sweeps. Spray crashed along the length of the hull as the squadron took a more southerly course.

And then the lookouts at the bow gave a cry, and Foscari grabbed his binoculars and hurried forward along the gangway to the forecastle. From a position between the two catapults, he leaned forward, binoculars pressed to his eyes, and got a face full of foam for his troubles. He snarled, wiped the lenses of the binoculars, and took a few steps back, out of the spray.

His heart shifted to a faster rhythm as he recognized the Cypriot fleet, not in the single disciplined line they'd adopted when parading past Rhodes Town the previous day, but in a gaggle with their sails set, billowing in every color of the rainbow, their admiral taking advantage of the southerly wind to spare the oarsmen's labors. They were due south, still ten or twelve kilometers distant.

They might not yet see Foscari's ships, which lay close to the water and had left their masts and sails at home. Foscari decided to set his course more easterly, to keep the enemy between his ships and the land and give himself more room to maneuver.

He returned to the quarterdeck and ordered the course change, then told the trumpeter to signal the ships into battle formation. The call sang out in the still morning, and was reinforced by a wigwag signal from the ship's signals officer, standing in plain sight on the poop with his flags flashing in the sun. The signal was passed up the line, and the other galleys, drummers rapping out a faster pattern, began to surge forward to take position on either side of the flag, until they formed a line abreast.

The eight Venetian ships were on the left, with the flagship seventh in line. The four Rhodian ships were on the right, in the place of honor, because the engagement would be fought in their home waters.

Foscari went forward again, with his binoculars, to view the enemy fleet. They continued to sail on for some time, oblivious to the approaching allies until the distance between the ships had been halved—and then there was a sudden change, the colorful sails blooming like great bladders as they spilled wind, the yards dropping on the run, the masts toppling like falling timber into their cradles . . . Surprise was complete.

Foscari ordered the allied fleet to turn directly toward the enemy and increase speed. He'd engage as soon as possible, and hope to keep them on their heels. As the Cypriots straggled into line abreast, Foscari kept his binoculars pressed to eyes, looking for sign that hawsers were being passed between the ships to rope them together.

Apparently not. The enemy response was too frantic to suggest any kind of plan at all.

And the enemy ships, once they straggled into formation, demonstrated poor station-keeping. Which was unsurprising, considering they were all built to different designs.

Foscari returned to the poop. Below him the hundred and forty-four oarsmen surged back and forth in one great mass, like the tide advancing and retreating into a narrow chasm, each surge in answer to the drummer, below Foscari's feet under the break of the poop, as he beat the sounding boards. The sea-rollers were coming in from right abeam now, throwing spray over the ship, and
Barbarigo
rolled heavily as the oarsmen hurled her forward. That would make it difficult to aim the catapults properly on the approach, but it would affect the two sides equally, so Foscari decided not to worry about it.

Instead he watched the approaching line of ships and considered matters of timing. If his maneuver was too early, the enemy would have time to respond—and if too late, he could expose his fleet to a ramming attack by the enemy.

Salt spray doused his face. He took off his Unione Venezia cap and wiped his face, then looked at the cap in surprise.

He'd forgot to put on his helmet.
Well,
he thought,
too late now
.

The enemy galleys, their sides brilliant with red and gold and green, scuttled closer across the ocean, like angry, purposeful centipedes with scores of flashing, thrashing legs.

Foscari's heart thundered in his chest. He looked from one enemy ship to the next, and then snatched his speaking trumpet from the rack.

Then, eyes darting among the enemy ships, he waited three . . . long . . . seconds.

“Splitting speed!” he shouted. He pointed at the trumpeter and his signaler. “Signal the
spaccato
!”

The drummer rapped out the knock-knock-knock that signaled a change in tempo, and then brought both mallets crashing down onto the sounding boards. The trumpet rippled out a series of high, brilliant notes that danced in the air.
Barbarigo
lurched as the sweeps hurled it forward at a greater pace.

Foscari looked over his shoulder to see the galleys on either side pick up speed, then turn to follow in
Barbarigo
's wake.

“Starboard your helm.” Foscari stood atop the break in the poop and shouted down at the helmsmen, who were sheltered from enemy fire by the deck above. “Good. Hold her. Now amidships.”

He'd chosen his target, or rather his lack of one. He wasn't heading for an enemy ship, but rather the space between enemy ships. He, and the two galleys following, were going to arrow right between enemy ships, then spin and attack them from the rear, where they couldn't defend themselves.

The other Venetians were engaged in the same maneuver, forming themselves into another pair of arrows, one of three ships and one of two, aiming to cut through the enemy line.

The ancient Greeks called the maneuver
diekplous
, “the splitting,” and it required a high level of training and discipline both among the captains and the oarsmen. Foscari's crews had been training for years to perform just this maneuver, and he was confident that the Cypriot crews weren't up to this standard.

And this was why Foscari had been so worried that the Cypriots might have strung hawsers between the ships, a tactic developed in the Renaissance to prevent just this maneuver. A hawser not only would have stopped his ship dead in the water, it would have pulled the enemy ships down onto his flanks and rear.

His allies, the Rhodians, were unpracticed at the
diekplous
. Archiploiarchos Georgallis would have to engage the enemy head-to-head, and hope for the best.

There was a percussive thrum in the air as one of the forecastle catapults tried a shot. Foscari followed the smoking track of the projectile in the air—it was a glass bottle filled with jellied gasoline, wrapped in a burning fuse of tarred rope—but the
Barbarigo
was rolling too much for proper aim, and the missile fell short and plowed a white furrow in the sea.