Blood Fever Read online

  There were footsteps on the iron stairs behind him and Tree-Trunk glanced round to see Davey Day, the first mate, arriving in the wheelhouse looking pale and cold.

  Davey peered out at the boiling sea and sniffed. ‘This is bad,’ he said.

  ‘Stinking weather,’ said Tree-Trunk, and he spat on to the floor.

  ‘How long now, d’you reckon?’ asked Davey, shivering.

  Tree-Trunk glanced briefly at the compass, bobbing and twisting in the binnacle. ‘It not good,’ he said. ‘We’re into the weather all the way.’

  ‘Will we make Tunis before morning?’ said Davey.

  ‘No. And if it gets worse we’ll have to put into Malta. Wait till it blows itself out,’ replied Tree-Trunk.

  ‘Do you want to tell the boss, or shall I?’ said Davey.

  ‘I go,’ said Tree-Trunk. ‘You take the wheel.’

  Davey reluctantly took over and Tree-Trunk clattered down the stairs below deck. He was almost too tall and too wide for the corridor and bowled along it, bouncing off the sides and muttering dark curses under his breath.

  When he reached the captain’s door he knocked and barged in without waiting for a reply. Zoltan the Magyar was sitting at his table with the girl. His short blond hair was greasy and his strange silvery grey eyes were filmed with moisture as if he might be about to burst into tears. He was sick. It was clear. Blood was leaking from his injured shoulder into his shirt.

  Zoltan listened as Tree-Trunk explained their situation, but he didn’t seem concerned.

  ‘We press on,’ he said. ‘We’ve weathered worse than this.’

  Tree-Trunk nodded and left without saying anything.

  Zoltan poured himself some thick red wine, steadying the cup with his feeble left hand.

  His cabin was small and dark, lit by a wildly swinging oil lamp whose guttering flame was turned low. Down here the sound of the engine was very loud. It was like being inside a great beast, next to its beating heart.

  Across the table from Zoltan sat Amy Goodenough. She was pale and unwashed, her dark eyes glinting feverishly in the half-light.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t join me?’ said Zoltan, putting the bottle down in a rack. Amy said nothing; she merely shook her head with a tiny, almost imperceptible movement. She didn’t want to accept anything from the man who had killed her father.

  ‘When you are in the belly of a storm, the only thing to do is drink,’ said Zoltan, raising his glass. ‘Bull’s Blood,’ he said. ‘You know why is called this?’

  Amy glared sullenly at him but didn’t speak.

  ‘I am going to tell you anyway,’ said Zoltan. ‘Times like this are made for stories.’ The ship keeled over and the two of them were thrown sideways. Zoltan automatically tried to brace himself with his bad arm and gasped with the pain. ‘There was a great fight hundreds of years ago,’ he said, straightening up and raising his cup. ‘Between the Hungarians and the Turks. The Hungarians were weak and beaten, but their commander gave them wine and they were filled with the spirit of battle. The Turks run away, thinking the Hungarians must have drunk the blood of bulls to give them such strength.’ Zoltan laughed and winced, clutching his arm. Amy’s knife had gone in beneath the shoulder bone, severing the tendons around the joint. A doctor in Istanbul had tried to repair the wound, but it had recently opened up again and now seemed to have become infected.

  A girl had done this. A fourteen-year-old girl. She had a look of defiance about her that he admired, despite what she had done to him.

  He laughed and clumsily lit a cigarette. ‘You think I’m an ogre, don’t you, Amy?’

  Still Amy said nothing.

  ‘You know perhaps where your word “ogre” comes from?’

  Amy shook her head.

  ‘From the word “Magyar”…’ He laughed again and took a gulp of wine. ‘We Hungarians are descended from the tribes that swept into Europe from the east. First the Huns and later the Magyars. We built castles everywhere. And we scared the living daylights out of everyone. We were ogres. In the fairy tales we grew huge, with giant teeth. We ate children! But the ogres were men like me. Magyars. So, yes, maybe I am an ogre. But I am still a man.’

  ‘Ha!’ was all that Amy had to say. She was wearing a baggy shirt and trousers that had belonged to the smallest member of Zoltan’s crew and she hadn’t changed them in weeks. They smelt sour and fitted badly, but she was too exhausted to care. Ever since the attack on the Siren she felt like she had been walking through a dream.

  Smuggling was Zoltan’s main concern, rather than piracy, and for the past few weeks they had been criss-crossing the Mediterranean: first to Turkey, then to Cyprus and Beirut, then Alexandria in Egypt, then back to Turkey. In each port Zoltan had unloaded some of his spoils, and traded them for other goods: opium, hashish, wine, brandy, guns. But he had never unloaded Amy. Whenever they put in to a new port she was locked in a secret compartment in the hold with her tutor, Grace. The compartment was used for contraband and wasn’t designed for the comfort of living people. There was no light and no portholes.

  They had tried not to despair. Huddled together in the stifling heat they fought to keep each other’s spirits up, but each time they were sent below Grace grew more miserable and scared.

  Alexandria had been the worst. Amy had always dreamed of visiting Egypt, of seeing the pyramids and the Sphinx and the temple of Karnack, but she had never dreamed that when she got there she would spend the time locked in darkness in a smuggler’s hold. The heat had been extraordinary and there was no sense of time or space down in the bottom of the ship. No sound even penetrated the walls of their hellish cell. The most awful part of it was not knowing what was going to happen to her. She had terrible black thoughts, but said nothing to Grace, who seemed close to giving up.

  From Turkey they had crossed the Aegean to Athens, then steamed on to the ancient walled town of Otranto in the heel of Italy. And it was here that Zoltan had finally let Amy go ashore.

  ‘Your teacher will stay on board,’ he had explained. ‘So that if you do anything foolish you know she will be punished.’

  ‘Not in the hold,’ Amy had pleaded. ‘You can’t keep her in the hold again.’

  ‘All right. As long as she stays below decks.’

  Zoltan had led Amy up through the winding medieval streets of the city to see the cathedral. The whole of its floor was covered in an extraordinary mosaic showing the tree of life surrounded by strange animals and mythical creatures, but Zoltan wanted to show her something else. There was a small chapel off to one side, the walls of which were decorated with hundreds of yellow skulls and human bones.

  ‘They are martyrs,’ he explained. ‘The city was attacked by corsairs – Muslim pirates. The eight hundred survivors were offered their lives if they converted to Islam. They refused and were beheaded. There are many things worth dying for, but God is not one of them.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ said Amy. She felt light-headed. The cathedral smelt of incense and burning candles and there was a gloomy, oppressive atmosphere.

  ‘I thought you would find it interesting,’ said Zoltan.

  ‘It’s horrible,’ Amy said angrily. ‘Why did you think I would like this? You are horrible. What do you want with me?’

  ‘You are valuable, Amy,’ said Zoltan. ‘You will be useful to me.’

  ‘So, I’m just like all the things you smuggle on your ship, am I?’ said Amy. ‘An object to be bought and sold?’

  ‘I have contacted your family to arrange a ransom,’ said Zoltan.

  Amy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if she should be pleased by the news with its hope of returning home, or upset that she was to be bartered.

  ‘My grandfather won’t pay,’ she said. ‘He will come after you. He will hunt you down and kill you.’

  ‘He would never find me,’ said Zoltan. ‘He wouldn’t know where to start. The trail is very complicated. It will take time, but I will get my money. The first thing he will a
sk for is proof that I have you. What do you think I should send to him? A finger? An ear? The tip of your nose?’

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ said Amy, and Zoltan laughed.

  ‘I was teasing you, Amy,’ he said. ‘I would not harm you. I like you. I want to talk with you. I am bored with the company of men. You are a civilised person. Talk to me.’

  And ever since then, at any available opportunity, Zoltan had brought Amy to his cabin, like today, and sat across his table from her, drinking wine and talking.

  ‘I believe you were sent, Amy,’ he said. ‘You are my fate. Do you think maybe I am dying? Do you think you killed me after all, with your knife?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Amy said, and Zoltan smiled.

  ‘I am not scared of dying,’ he said. ‘I am not scared of anything – except the sea.’

  ‘The sea?’ Amy said. Despite herself she was intrigued.

  ‘Yes. When I think of you, Amy, I think of you coming out of the water like a mermaid. Like a sea sprite, sent to claim me. You are a spirit of the water, and I have always known that the sea would be my death.’

  ‘But you’re a sailor,’ said Amy. ‘How can you be afraid of the sea?’

  ‘A sailor should fear the sea,’ said Zoltan. ‘He should respect it.’

  ‘I love the sea,’ said Amy. ‘I love to swim in it.’

  ‘I can’t swim,’ said Zoltan.

  ‘You can’t swim?’

  ‘Oh… Many sailors can’t swim. It is considered bad luck. Tempting to fate.’

  ‘But that’s so dangerous,’ said Amy.

  ‘The trick is not to fall in,’ said Zoltan, and for the first time in a long while, Amy smiled.

  ‘I will never swim,’ Zoltan went on. ‘I fight the sea. I have mastered the sea. I sail my boat upon it, and I will not put myself into its mouth. The sea is for the fish, for crabs and lobsters and squid. I never even saw the sea until I was sixteen. I had left my farm to join the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The whole world was at war. I was sent to the Italian front, but I soon realised that it was stupid. Our young men fought the young Italian men, and for what? To try to win back some land that the Italians said was theirs and we said was ours. It was nothing to do with me. I had no stomach for it. I ran away and made my way down through Albania into Greece. Where I fell in with criminals, smugglers, pirates, murderers and deserters. In the chaos of war there are many opportunities for a clever man. I soon had my own ship, after the captain fell overboard and sadly drowned.’

  ‘Fell, or was pushed?’ said Amy.

  ‘He was old and weak,’ said Zoltan. ‘I simply put him out of his misery like a sick dog. And one day, if I get too old and weak, I am sure that one of my crew would do the same to me. That is why I keep on, Amy. That is why I will not take to my bed and let your wound have the better of me. My men must not see me sick.’ He stopped and poured himself more wine. ‘I am hoping, though,’ he said after a while, ‘that I will not grow old on this boat. Soon I will be rich enough to leave this life behind me and buy land and a fine house and settle down.’

  ‘You think my grandfather will pay that much for me?’ Amy scoffed.

  ‘It is not only you,’ said Zoltan. ‘It is everything I have in my hold below. Don’t you worry, it is all planned. Once we get to Sardinia everything will be different.’

  7

  Terror Firma

  The tower had stood there for 3,000 years. Built from massive blocks of black stone, some over 6 feet long. How the ancients had got them here and piled them on top of each other, James couldn’t imagine. There was something of the mystery of Stonehenge about the place.

  ‘It is known as the Sant’ Antine Nuraghe,’ said Peter Love-Haight, with a dramatic sweep of his hand. ‘We don’t know a great deal about the Nuraghic people who built these towers, or, for that matter, why they built them. The most obvious answer is that they were castles of some sort, built for defence against the many invaders who used to plague this island. But they may have had a religious significance. There are over seven thousand of them here in Sardinia, and this is one of the largest and most impressive. The main tower used to be three storeys high, some 70 feet, but a local mayor removed the top layer to build a fountain in the nineteenth century.’

  They were in the Valle dei Nuraghi – the Valley of the Nuraghi – a wide, volcanic plain, baking under the burning sun. It was studded with the cones of long dead volcanoes and, as James looked more closely, he realised that there were several more of these mysterious ruined towers dotted about the valley like broken teeth.

  They had left Dover five days ago, crossed the Channel by ferry, then travelled by train down to Genoa in northern Italy, where they had boarded a steamer for Sardinia.

  A bus had been waiting for them in the port of Terranova, manned by a burly, dark-skinned Sardinian called Quintino, who was to be their driver and guide.

  They had driven westward across the island to Torralba, through countryside that was wild and open, with not a building in sight. Its only inhabitants were flocks of sheep and goats being looked after by craggy shepherds in sleeveless sheepskin jackets.

  They had settled down for the night in a local school, sleeping on army-issue camp beds under dusty mosquito nets. This morning they had driven out to the Neolithic site, which was looked after by a gnome-like man wearing the traditional local costume of loose-sleeved white shirt, black waistcoat, full white trousers bound tightly below the knees with black gaiters, and a wide belt with a sort of short black skirt, or apron hanging below it. On his head he wore a black stocking cap. He had folded the long flap, which would normally have dangled down his back, forward over his forehead so that it shielded his eyes from the fierce sun.

  The site was dominated by the huge central tower, but clustered around it, and encircled by a low drystone wall, were the ruins of what looked like a whole village of small houses and huts, mostly circular in design.

  Haight explained that the boys would be helping to excavate a roped-off patch of land outside the wall, digging in the dirt with small trowels and sifting it with sieves. A makeshift canvas awning had been erected among the thistles and corn stalks and underneath it were two long tables. Haight showed them the various artefacts that had been unearthed so far – fragments of pottery and a small bronze figurine.

  ‘These bits and pieces have been buried under the ground for centuries,’ he said, delicately turning a piece of broken pot in his hands. ‘I don’t expect we’ll dig up anything that will shake the world, but I wanted to give you boys a taste of what archaeology is all about.’

  A serious young man from the local museum was supervising, sweating heavily in a dark suit. He seemed nervous and slightly miserable, obviously worried that the clumsy boys would damage something.

  As James bent down for a closer look at one of the objects, somebody gave him a shove from behind and he sprawled across the table, knocking over the figurine.

  The museum curator tutted and James spun round angrily.

  Just as he had expected, he saw the grinning face of Tony Fitzpaine.

  Fitzpaine was the arrogant, aristocratic youth James had knocked into the river after Haight’s lecture to the Archaeological Society. Finding out that Fitzpaine was on the trip had been something of a shock to James and, ever since confronting him on the Channel ferry, Fitzpaine had gone out of his way to get up James’s nose.

  James let it go, and chose to ignore him. It was too hot to risk getting worked up about anything.

  Haight told the boys to be more careful and organized them into three work parties.

  For a couple of hours James helped out, kneeling in the dirt alongside Perry Mandeville, and as he worked his mind was free to think.

  Last night, as he’d been unpacking his suitcase, he’d found a letter. Charmian had stuffed it into his pocket when he was leaving her cottage and in his excitement he had forgotten all about it.

  He’d sat down on his camp bed, slit the envelope open and taken ou
t an untidily folded sheet of notepaper. He’d recognised the handwriting immediately: thin and slanting and spidery, it was from Mr Merriot, his classical tutor at Eton.

  Dear James,

  Forgive me for writing to you in the holidays, old chap. I’m sure the last thing you want to be thinking about right now is school, but I thought you might be interested in this. You asked me in private business the other day if the Roman numerals MM held any significance. At the time I could think of nothing, but last night I was having dinner with my colleague Mr Cooper-ffrench. I don’t think he’s forgotten about meeting your formidable aunt, by the way!

  Our conversation turned to Roman history, as it so often does with Cooper-ffrench, and he mentioned a secret Italian society known as the Millennaria.

  If you’ll permit me a short history lesson, I’ll fill you in on some of the background. While we teach a great deal about the ancient Romans, there’s very little room left in your poor aching noodles for more recent Italian history. But, to be brief, a hundred years ago there was no country called Italy, as such. That is to say, the area we now know as Italy was made up of various rival city-states, many of them governed by foreign rulers. Then, in the first half of the nineteenth century a nationalist movement sprang up. The idea was to unite the land into one country and boot out all the foreigners.

  Well, the Italians have always been fond of secret societies and spies and skulduggery, so, rather than simply form an army, the nationalists created a great number of underground groups instead, whose aim was to spread the word about unification and generally stir things up. Most of it came to nothing until, with the help of a great general called Garibaldi, a movement called the Risorgimento eventually succeeded in uniting the whole country in the 1870s. They created what we now know as Italy, under one king – Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia (where you’re off to, I believe).

  But, for some Italians, that wasn’t enough. Why stop there? they argued. Rome had once ruled the entire known world. Could it not do so again? The unification of Italy was only the beginning; the ultimate aim should be the rebuilding of the entire Roman Empire.