Eric Flint - Much Fall Of Blood

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.

Still, the problem would have to be faced, and soon. Petro wanted him back in Venice within three weeks.

Maria watched her daughter indulging in the traditional pastime of chewing her toes. She had begun to worry about winter. That was a thought that was never too far from her mind. She would have to leave Alessia and Benito and go down into a vast and unearthly realm to spend her four months with Aidoneus, the Lord of the Dead.

She really, really did not wish to go, but that was the bargain that she had made. No matter that she had risen to be a scoulo wife, and now the wife in all but name of the acting governor of one of Venice's most valuable colonies: she was a canaler born. There was a code of honor that went with that. Canalers had very little, except for that code. They made their bargains, and they lived and died by them.