Highlander: The Measure of a Man, Page 2

  At any cost.

  But you are weak: You want to protect your love. I love no one. You want to maintain your honor. I have no honor.

  I am stronger.

  And I am winning.

  I see nothing of defeat in your face. You cannot know it yet, cannot accept it. But I have you.

  Hidari-do, blow to the left; migi-do, blow to the right. Ryote, sword in both hands, katate, in one hand. You are skilled in lai-jutsu.

  As soon as I answer your kata, you switch to another school—Ichiden-ryu. Then to pure Highlander fury.

  But you misstep.

  You smack backward against a boulder and slide to the sand, the rough rock ripping the skin off your back. Oblivious, you charge. Bloodlust burns in your eyes. Your teeth gleam, bared, and there seems to be no mind to you, no thought to you. You dervish like a machine, like the energy of a hurricane.

  For me: survival, survival.

  For you: survival, tempered by the need to protect.

  I know you. I know that in your soul you believe you will never die. You think you are the one.

  I thought the same about you. But today something told me to take you. Today I knew I could beat you.

  Only today.

  And what mythic power compelled me, what force of nature or supernatural being whispered in my heart, “Today,” I may never know. It is not important.

  All that matters is that it was telling me the truth.

  And you die, Duncan MacLeod. You see the blade, you see the flash and shine of it colliding with your future. You feel the first tissues of your neck separate from your head.

  You whisper a name I cannot hear. The name of a love, perhaps. Or a teacher. Or the parents who cast you out.

  And is there relief? Is there the knowledge that, at last, the Game is over and your burden is lifted?

  Or is there only terror and despair?

  I cannot say. Your dark eyes are hooded; I half suspect a trick. But then your head comes off, so cleanly, so easily, and falls upon the sand. I am almost sorry, but I have come so close to dying that I cannot spare the confidence necessary to have such a thought.

  The Highlander is dead.

  I have killed Duncan MacLeod.

  And your Quickening? The violent death of a legend?

  The earth shakes; the waters rise up in a tidal wave and engulf and overthrow the beach. Lightning shrieks down the breakers, down the blackened sky. I writhe and shatter and roar out your name and remember with your life force the lives you led: I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I am MacLeod.

  I lose myself utterly in your spirit. I am you; I am consumed. Such a heart! Such a mind.

  We roll into the sea; we are whisked by the undercurrent as we sizzle and explode.

  And then, it is a baptism. I am myself again.

  And you are dead.

  I will stand over your grave and laugh. In pace requiescat.

  Rest in peace, Duncan MacLeod.

  And that is how it will be. And, more or less, how you will die. Oh, it may not be at a beach, or in a museum, or an antique store showroom.

  But you will die.

  By my hand. And by my name, which today is one thing, and tomorrow another, but remains this: your last adversary. The one who is stronger. Down through the centuries, I will come to you one day, and you will surely leave this world to me.

  There can be only one, Scotsman.

  And I am coming.

  It was almost dawn when Duncan MacLeod completed the first of the bare-hands forms of the Seven Star Praying Mantis kung fu style, Secret Force. Frowning, he bowed to his imaginary adversary and slowly exhaled. He had hoped a good workout with the soft southern Chinese style would calm him, but he was more charged up than before he had begun. Adrenaline coursed through his body as if preparing for a fight, not ending a training session. But better to hone his body and his reflexes than stay in bed, tossing and ruminating, and watching the sun rise.

  He grabbed a towel off a wooden chair, dried off, and pulled back his hair. On light feet he crossed to a Chinese lacquer table containing a large glass of water, a café au lait, a croissant slathered with marmalade, and the certified letter he had received late yesterday afternoon. Again he took the letter from the envelope, though he had done so at least a dozen times already, and reread the cryptic message, inked in a swirling hand:

  P-K4.

  The advance of a pawn. The opening move in a chess game.

  He had no idea what it signified, but there was no question who had sent it.

  “You old devil,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re still alive, but I am.”

  He turned the letter over with his left hand as he downed the water and looked at his own name and address in a nondescript, typed font. The postmark was Tokyo. The water gone, he sat on an ornately carved bench beside the table, picked up his cafe au jait, smooth and pungent, and took a small sip.

  P-K4. A very standard opening for a thousand different potential games. But not sent, he knew, by a standard opponent. How long since the two of them had played? More than three hundred years. How long since he had received an opening move in the mail? Perhaps sixty years. He counted backward, and was startled to realize it had been precisely one hundred. Was this some sort of anniversary, then? Or was the ancient Italian merely bored?

  “Or up to something,” MacLeod said, and put the letter down. Like the others, he would not answer it.

  And as with the others, the memories flooded back:

  Italy, 1655.

  Venice, to be precise.

  Niccolo Machiavelli, the deceiver, the murderer, who wore a smile as easily as a dagger, whose every gesture of friendship cloaked a carefully planned scheme of betrayal.

  One of the most dangerous Immortals MacLeod had ever crossed swords with.

  MacLeod crumpled the letter and aimed it at the trash can. He pitched it; the shot fell short, and the letter tumbled like a head to the wooden floor.

  MacLeod grunted in disgust, reached for the croissant, closed his eyes, and remembered it all, as clearly as if it had happened yesterday… which in some ways, it had, for time for an Immortal is not what it is for mortals. It is compressed, expanded, distorted, and put in compartments so that one does not go mad with so much remembering.

  But these memories, the memories of Machiavelli, were brilliant and vivid, like gaudy and desperate Venice herself. As shimmering and unforgettable as the beautiful women he had loved with the brute energy of youth in those early years of eternal life: Debra, Terezia, Maria Angelina.

  Maria Angelina…

  OPENING:

  King’s Gambit

  Venice, 1655

  Chapter One

  “… for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good.”

  —Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

  The Protector was a fine, well-armed brigantine decorated at the stern with the coat of arms of its master, Lord Arthur Burlingame. She was given her name to flatter Oliver Cromwell, the Great Protector of England, who had lopped off the head of the rightful king and sent his son and successor scurrying to France. The world was in a deplorable state: kings murdered; wars lasting for thirty years; Turks growing beautiful women like tobacco on farms to placate their savage sexual appetites; plagues that killed more than all the century’s wars and the incompetent, small-minded men who sat on most of the thrones of Europe combined.

  On top of all that, the poseur, Cromwell, wanted to readmit Jews into England. Burlingame snorted with disbelief.

  But a man could count on safe passage. Honor still existed. So, while Lord Arthur’s ship plied the perilous Mediterranean on a peace mission sanctioned by the Signory of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, he kept his safe-passage confidently locked inside the strongbox beneath his bed.

  Nevertheless, in the dead of night and without warning, the Venetians attacked him.

  “MacLeod!”r />
  His name was a shriek as the Highlander awoke; he was but an hour off the late watch and, as usual for him on a seagoing vessel, very sick.

  Nevertheless, decades of training leaped to the forefront of his consciousness, and he was instantly, fully alert. Wearing nothing but his loincloth, he grabbed his scimitar and leaped up the companionway, taking the steps two, three, four at a time.

  There were shouts and the clash of steel, but MacLeod saw nothing in the blackness. Then a man cried in Italian, “Halt, Turk!” and made for him. MacLeod thrust forward, upward, sideways. Since his unseen foe assumed he was an Ottoman, he employed the classic French fencing style to throw the Italian off-balance. He spun around and lunged left, right, using his curved scimitar like a saber.

  A sharp cry told him he had hit his target. There was the thump of a body on the deck.

  “To arms! To arms!” an Englishman shouted. MacLeod thought it might be Burlingame, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Chaos stormed around him. Steel clanged loudly in his left ear; his cheek was sliced open and blood gushed freely as he threw his weight to the left and rammed his attacker. The other man snarled at him like a dog and punched his stomach. MacLeod took a single step backward and heard the loose-sack sound of contact with the deck.

  Then lanterns blazed and arced like fireworks as Venetian seamen catapulted themselves onto the deck of the Protector. The English officers ordered the mixed crew forward. General Mustapha Ali’s towering Ottoman bodyguards needed no prompting. The Turks ululated and leaped at the boarders, slashing and hacking with the abandon of holy martyrs. The complement of ship’s officers was fenced in from the fray as the English crew joined the Turks, knives between their lips, cutlasses flashing.

  A lantern hit the deck, and there was a shout as a Venetian’s leather boot caught fire; the flame rushed up his leg as if it were made of gunpowder. He jumped over the side, arms and legs flailing.

  A dozen battles raged. The growing flames climbed the rigging and danced like St. Elmo’s fire along the yards. By the red, flickering light, MacLeod disarmed a man and ran him through. Whipping around, he held his sword over his head in fifth position, then sliced at an angle across another man’s throat. The man’s sword clattered to the deck; he clutched the gaping wound and fell to his knees. Gurgling in his own blood, he crumpled in death.

  “General Ali! Ali, where are you?” MacLeod bellowed.

  “No, I am an envoy. A special envoy. I was promised safe passage by your ambassador, Giorgio Battista Donado,” Ali insisted from the forecastle. “Duncan!”

  “An envoy, ‘General’?” someone asked mockingly.

  Two Venetians dragged Mustapha Ali amidships, an arm’s breadth away from MacLeod. Blood stained his now-filthy white robe and jeweled ankle-length sleeveless coat. His kaffiych had been knocked askew, revealing his gray hair. He was a tall, imposing man, muscled and scarred from battle, and it was a shame to him to be held by two dirty, ill-kempt men wearing little more than rags. MacLeod thrust out his left hand and grabbed Ali’s shoulcer, an offense in Arabic Algiers, but here, an act of heroism, for one of the Venetians brought down his sword and nearly severed MacLeod’s hand from his wrist.

  “He’s on official business!” MacLeod shouted, as if shouting would make the invaders believe him. “He was promised his safety, ye loutish curs. We—”

  “Be silent or die, Turk.” The man fingered the jewels on Ali’s coat and looked cryptically at his comrade.

  MacLeod replied in heavily accented Italian, “I’m no more a Turk than you. We have safe passage, guaranteed by the Doge. In writing,” he added, for he respected the written word, having little ability in that area himself.

  “I have seen it. It’s clearly a forgery. What odd Italian you speak.” The man laughed and thrust his sword beneath MacLeod’s chin as his comrade hustled Ali away. “You speak it worse than the Turk.”

  Ali and the other Venetian disappeared into the smoke. “He’s on his way for a private audience with your Doge, Francesco Molin,” MacLeod insisted.

  “He’s dead.” The man cuffed MacLeod with the hilt of his sword. “Carlo Contarini is our Doge now, and he knows of none of this.”

  Though dizzy from the blow, MacLeod took a threatening step forward. A large block of wood rocketed past him, barely missing his head. He hazarded a quick glance up. Both masts blazed like crosses at an auto-da-fé of the dreaded Holy Inquisition; the fiery sails luffed like giant bellows, blowing more air into the conflagration.

  MacLeod said to the man, “’Twere better we settled this elsewhere. She’s sure going to sink, if she doesn’t burn all to hell first.”

  “Silence!” But the man was startled; he looked around as if it were the fist time he’d noticed the fire. It was whipping into an inferno. The boards of the deck beneath his feet creaked ominously and he blinked rapidly, shocked speechless.

  “Give me your hand,” MacLeod urged.

  “By the bones of St. Mark,” the man said, staring at him as the deck bowed. “I’m going to die.”

  “Nay. Give me your hand!” MacLeod leaped forward and threw the man to the deck just as the section they had been standing on buckled and disappeared.

  MacLeod’s feet jutted over the chasm and, as flames shot up, he cried out with pain. The man began to kick at him as if to push him into the hole, but MacLeod gripped him fiercely and glowered at him. “You owe me, on your soul.” He clenched his jaw and spoke through his teeth. He was furious. “Though I canna trust that, can I, from a bastard who would kill the man who just saved his life.”

  “Si,” the man rasped, shamefaced. “Si. I do owe you my life. I swear to St. Ursula that I will protect yours when God sees fit to test my honor.”

  “Then know my name. I’m Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.” He wondered if it were wise to announce himself so publicly. He had been in Venice only two years before. He wasn’t certain if the family of Terezia d’Allesandro, captured by the corsair ibn Rais, had been ransomed, or if they knew that she had willingly become one of the pirate’s many brides. “If I ever have cause for your aid, you’re bound to give it to me. Do we understand each other?”

  The man’s eyes widened. MacLeod frowned at him and began to rise. Was his Italian so bad, or did this man deliberately pretend ignorance because he was untrustworthy?

  “Signor, signor,” the man babbled. “Signor, behind you.”

  Too late, MacLeod turned. The blade was through his body before he saw his attacker. Blood spewed from his chest like white water through a breach in a ship’s hull.

  “I am discharged from my vow,” said the man, scrabbling from beneath MacLeod as he collapsed.

  “Aye, ye are,” MacLeod replied. “And I am dead.” His eyes began to close; he could feel his heart struggling, his lungs capitulating. Och, he’d been so stupid. Thank God his Immortal kinsman, Connor MacLeod, was not here to see how badly his former pupil fared.

  Though blinded by death’s skeletal fingers, he felt himself lifted, swung, contracted in the iciness of the water and blinked at the accompanying splash as he shattered the surface of the deceptive Mediterranean, an ocean promised to be warm and calm and filled with comely sirens. He sank rapidly. Large, slimy masses examined his body as the blood poured out of it; sharks would soon gather, of that he had no doubt. They might pose a problem even for him. But for those now joining him in the water, their bodies smashing into him like cannon balls, sharks and drowning would be their final ends indeed.

  Damn you, we had safe passage, MacLeod thought, enraged, and felt his life go.

  Chapter Two

  “Those who become princes by virtue of their abilities… acquire dominion with difficulty but maintain it with ease.”

  —Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

  Carnival began in Venice on the first Sunday in October and ended with Lent, with a short resting period from Christmas Day until the Epiphany. That made six months of festival, and pretending that the Republic wasn’t a
nation kneeling at the block. Crisis? Decay? How could that be? It was Carnival, and Venice was the most beautiful city in the world!

  Yet above the bunting and the crowds that reveled twenty-four hours a day, swords of a dozen nations dangled by threads: French, Portuguese; those of former colonies frenzied with the thirst for vengeance; the endless struggle for Crete.

  But the heaviest and largest sword was a scimitar curved and sharp like a smiling tiger. It belonged to Mahomet IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After centuries of warring, the Ottomans had seized the advantage, and all that remained was to deliver the mortal blow. Then the Most Serene Republic would be dead.

  But Venetians would not, could not, think like that. So during Carnival, virtuous wives who for six months prayed daily at St. Mark’s, donned concealing hooded garments called chaperones and bird-beak masks in the silvery night and lay with soldiers and prelates like licentious whores. Prostitutes dressed like harem girls and Smeraldina from the commedia. They danced half-naked in the taverns and in the firelight beside the bridges, gave the general populace, from the fiercesome condottieri, or mercenaries, to the gondoliers, the even more fiercesome “French disease.” (Which the French called the “Italian disease.”)

  Priests stole money for drink from the poor boxes and merchants filed their gold pieces for more profit. The Doge and the Signory lied to the people and told them there was nothing to fear from the Turks while they themselves made contingency plans for escape. What did it matter who lied and who died? The world was ending, and at the Devil’s Masque, no one knew, or cared.

  MacLeod, sopping from the well water he had used to clean himself, put on his black mask and peered through a chink in a whitewashed balcony. One could not stroll through Venice naked—not even at Carnival—so he had with regret lightened a drunken reveler of his costume. He was now dressed as a swashbuckling corsair in red satin pantaloons, a white silk shirt, and a turban. The wide-topped boots almost fit, a miracle for which he was most grateful.

  Remarkably, the man had been carrying an authentic scimitar, not a beauty such as MacLeod had carried in Algiers, but something merely serviceable. It hung now at MacLeod’s side, and while he doubted it would ever become part of him, at least he was armed again.