"Let them handle that!" roared a bull-like voice. Manfred strode through the small waves, and grabbed the anchor rope. "Haul! On the count of three!"
Manfred had both the voice and the presence for command, so more men rushed to seize the ropes. The ship however was filling up, settling, heavier. Much heavier. Maria, who was now hauling the water for their little house daily, knew just how much water weighed.
"One, two, three! Heave."
The vessel moved sluggishly. It wallowed like a drunken cow.
"And again! One, two, three."
Out beyond the ships, the Magyars were being reduced to bloody fragments. Maria promptly dismissed them from her mind, and went back to something she could do something about.
The rope snapped. Manfred's first heroic impression made on the Corfu garrison was of himself sprawling on his backside in the shallows, legs in the air. The roar of general laughter was inevitable, if hardly kind to his dignity. Because only one rope was now hauling the boat it slewed sideways a bit, till the prow touched the stern of the other vessel. "I wouldn't have put my nose there!" said one wag.
Erik had returned to the scene. "Up, all of you. The ships must be unloaded." He, too, had the presence of command. Those who had been hauling on the first rope, if they could not find space on the second, fell into a line heaving bags and boxes and unidentifiable bits into the fortress.
Maria found herself sharing a burden, carrying in a grain bag with another garrison woman. The woman looked at her with the liveliest of curiosity. "You look terribly ordinary after the stories I'd heard."
"What stories?" asked Maria warily. "What have you heard from whom?"
"I had it from Rosalba Benelli, who heard it from her maid, whose sister is one of the poor girls who work for Sophia Tomaselli's friend Melina, that Milady Verrier had been seen in an alley in Kerkira with your dress up and two sailors." She snickered, clearly not in the least inclined to believe it—not now, at least.
Maria snorted. "She's talking about her own daydreams. I'm a respectable married woman. Besides, when would I have time? I do the work of my household myself, and thank you. I don't need twenty little girls to do it for me."
She felt slightly guilty saying that, since Alessia wasn't Umberto's child. But she owed it to Alessia—Umberto too, for that matter—to kill any such rumors.
The woman, slightly plump and with a distinct twinkle in her expressive eyes, clicked her tongue. "Tch! And there I was going to ask how you managed two." She rolled her eyes. "I can't even manage my Alberto. He keeps falling asleep, especially now they're doing these guard shifts."
Maria grinned. "I think we women should complain to the captain-general."
The woman at the other end of the sack snorted. "And have randy Tomaselli offer to help out? No, thank you very much!"
Maria's mouth twitched. "Maybe we should suggest to dear Sofia that he needs a little . . ."
The other woman began giggling. "What? That would be beneath her dignity. Besides it would spoil her makeup."
"Only she if she smiled, which seems unlikely," Maria said, thoughtfully, as they tramped over shingle that slipped and rattled under their feet. "Or maybe she doesn't just plaster her face . . . does she have to do the whole body?"
The plumpish woman looked as if she was going to fall over and drop the sack. "Oh, Lord and Saints! If she could hear you . . ."
She went off into shrieks of laughter. They reached the gate and the pile of food bags just as Maria was beginning to think the woman would kill herself laughing. They dumped the bag. And the woman hugged Maria. "You can't know how nice it is to hear someone being malicious about Milady Sophia Tomaselli for a change. My name is Stella Mavroukis. I don't care if we've been told by 'her ladyship' not to talk to you."
"Maria Verrier. I'm married to . . ."
Stella grinned wickedly. "We know all about Umberto. I even know what you send him for lunches. That's the trouble with Corfu. Small community. Not much to do but gossip. But it used to be fun back before 'her ladyship' got here. Come on, let's fetch another sack."
By the time they got back with the next sack, Maria knew the names, ages, childhood diseases and mischief of all five of Stella's brood, as well as several intimate details about her Alberto that Maria was sure would never allow her to meet Alberto without blushing, or at least laughing. She also knew that Alberto was a "Greek" Venetian, son of one of the many craftsmen that the Republic of Venice had seduced into her state with offers of citizenship, money and employment.
Also, of course, they'd torn Sophia Tomaselli's character, appearance and morals to shreds, very pleasurably.
* * *
Benito staggered under his load. Falkenberg in full armor was no lightweight. He was also not helping much.
They'd been up on the beach, where the battle-hardened knight had just gotten his precious horse to shore. He'd clapped Benito on the shoulder. "Well. We made it. Although this last bit has turned into a horse's—"
Then a stray ball hit him. It was one of those flukes that happened. It had hit his visor, which had shattered. The knight had fallen slowly . . . so slowly that Benito had been able to catch him.
Now they staggered toward the fortress. Benito no longer thought of strategy or tactics, just of getting the bleeding man to help, and off this beach. A Venetian came and took the other side of Falkenberg and together they staggered to the gate, while the firefight raged and the knights ripped the Magyar heavy cavalry to pieces. Falkenberg was now totally unconscious and lolling between them.
"What happened?" panted the Venetian. With a little sense of shock, Benito realized it was Umberto Verrier. The man who had married Maria.
"He was hit in the face by a ball." They were inside the gates by now.
"Let's put him down. See if we can stop the bleeding."
They laid Falkenberg down on the cobbles and Benito bent over his face, feeling sick. If only Marco was here!
"My God. What a mess." Fragments of steel had torn into the eye and right side of Falkenberg's face and head. The inside of the helmet was a mess of blood and flesh-shreds. It was still bleeding. "What the hell do we do?" he asked the older man.
For an answer, Umberto had already run over to two other men. He brought them over to the knight, with a couple of broad slats. "These men are from the hospital. They'll take him up there. The chirurgeons will help him."
"Will he live?" whispered Benito.
"Too early to tell," said one of the hospitalers critically. "But we'll have him on these planks and up there in two shakes of a lamb's tail. If you'll get out of the way, sir."
Hastily, Benito complied.
Meanwhile, Umberto called to two of the men who were struggling to push the timber further out so that the gate could be closed.
"The timber at the bottom is not going to move, Alberto! There's too much weight on it."
"So what do we do?" asked the other. "We need to be able to close this gate."
Umberto took a critical look. "They're still using it as a shelter. Let's move what we can on the top. It's only two or three of the lower balks that should be a problem. Maybe if we can get a lever of some sort to them."