WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Ceaseless
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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈
Chapter 96: The Battle of Thessaloniki
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Mestre Pier, Venice.
At this place where land ended and sea began, the air was thick with salty, sticky moisture.
It smelled of the sea.
And of money.
Having barely made it to Venice, Oswald used his cane to keep himself from collapsing as his legs gave out.
Spring had fully arrived while they crossed the Alps, yet sweat still soaked his back.
“Whew, whew... I nearly died for real.”
His gaze turned north, toward the massive Alpine peaks veiled by clouds.
Jan Žižka approached with the heavy beat of hooves.
“You have suffered, Sir Oswald.”
Rare, sincere recognition shone in the old general’s eyes as Jan Žižka looked down from the saddle.
“If not for that tongue of yours, I would have had to draw my sword ten times over. I admit it.”
Žižka was not exaggerating.
From Brenner Pass in Tyrol to the Veneto Plain, the rugged mountain roads had been a wolf’s den. Greedy bands of brigands and robber nobles even worse than brigands had occupied every pass, eager to extort tolls.
The crossing of Brenner Pass had been the finest example.
‘Halt! Pass or no pass, if you want to set foot in my domain, you will pay one gold coin for every wheel!’
When Baron von Kunz blocked the road with his private soldiers, Žižka’s hand had already gone to his sword hilt. The man was a lunatic who cared nothing for Venetian banners.
Then Oswald stepped forward.
‘Well, if it is not Baron Kunz! The very man who skipped out on his bill at an Innsbruck brothel three years ago!’
‘W-What? You mad bastard!’
‘And I hear your wife believes you have gone to a monastery to pray. Yet you used that money to buy jewels for the countess in the neighboring domain, did you not? It would be most amusing if your father-in-law heard of this!’
Baron Kunz’s face turned red, then white. At last, he cleared the way.
‘G-Go! Get out of here! Never show your faces before me again!’
That was roughly how it went.
For one lord, he let slip a story about a hidden bastard child. At another gate, he recited a family tree, claimed they were eighth-degree relatives, and turned the meeting into a drinking party. Elsewhere, he waved a forged imperial decree and shouted the guards into submission.
“You truly are remarkable, Sir Wolkenstein.”
Oswald turned at the admiring voice behind him.
Francesco Foscari was looking at him with genuine awe. More precisely, he looked at Oswald as an appraiser might look upon an extremely valuable treasure.
“To be honest, I thought we would need to draw our swords at least once or twice. I never imagined you would know even the back roads through those harsh Tyrolean valleys so thoroughly.”
Foscari recalled the detours Oswald had shown them.
An old salt-smuggling route disguised to appear blocked by a landslide.
Thanks to that route, they had avoided Duke Frederick of Austria’s most troublesome checkpoint.
Venice was a city of information.
Who slept with whom, who owed money, and who hated whom.
Such trivial details gathered together became diplomacy, trade, and money.
To Foscari, who hoped to become the next Doge, Oswald was a walking top-secret document.
Foscari spoke in a quiet voice.
“Sir, I am quite serious. Would you ever consider coming to Venice?”
“What?”
“It is a waste of your gifts for a man such as yourself to be stuck in the Bohemian countryside. Our republic could build you a mansion of gold for a diplomat as skilled in geography and negotiation as you. We could even guarantee you a seat in the Senate.”
It was an extraordinarily generous offer.
A position in the government of Europe’s richest city-state.
It would be far more secure and splendid to become a high official of Venice, the ruler of the Mediterranean, than to remain in a heretic state that might be crushed by crusaders at any moment.
There was no reason to refuse. Foscari sincerely believed so.
Yet Oswald shoved his sweat-soaked handkerchief into his pocket and shook his head.
“I appreciate the offer, but I must decline.”
“Are the terms insufficient? Name whatever annual salary you wish...”
“No, it is not a matter of money.”
Oswald took his treasured leather notebook and pencil stub from inside his coat.
“I am very satisfied with my life now.”
“Satisfied... in what sense?”
“It is work no diplomat in the world could ever do. Instead of whispering in a king’s ear, I can shout to tens of thousands of people.”
The Oswald of old might have welcomed the offer with open arms.
But now, the thrill of seeing articles he wrote printed on tens of thousands of sheets and spread across the world was sweeter to him than Venetian gold.
Foscari stared blankly at him for a moment, then gave a small laugh and nodded.
“What a shame. The King of Bohemia is truly fortunate to have such a loyal subject.”
“A loyal subject...”
Oswald chuckled to himself.
It was not loyalty, exactly. He simply could not leave because the world that young king showed him was too stimulating and too entertaining.
* * *
Creeeak, thud.
Whoosh.
The wooden planks groaned, and salty seawater lashed the deck.
Venice’s most advanced galley, the Galea Sottile.
It was the hunting hound of the Mediterranean, famed for its sleek hull and speed. But to those aboard, it was little more than a floating instrument of torture.
“Urgh... Bleeegh!”
Matej of the Royal Elite Artillery Corps lay sprawled over the railing like a dried fish.
Everything in his stomach had long since come out. The hard ship’s biscuit he had eaten that morning, the watered wine from the previous evening, even his soul seemed to have escaped through his throat.
Ondřej, sprawled beside him, was in no better shape. With the vacant eyes of a dead fish, they could only stare blankly at the swaying mast.
“Hey, Matej... when... when are we going to see land...?”
“I don’t know... Don’t ask me...”
“How many days has it been...? Those Venetian bastards eat just fine on a ship... Urgh!”
Ondřej twisted as he retched again.
The only water the two had ever seen in their lives was the gently flowing Vltava River, or at most a lake where they cast fishing lines.
Their senses had no concept of the ground rising and falling wildly at its own whim.
Creeeak, thud!
As the ship tilted sharply, barrels stacked in the corner rolled across the deck with a great clatter. At the same time, the soldiers rolling on the floor were tossed to one side like luggage.
“Who... who said sailing was comfortable...?”
They had complained that their legs hurt while crossing the Alps. But now that they thought of it, those days spent walking upon firm ground had been heaven.
“Tsk, tsk. Look at the state of you.”
Amid the chaos, only Oswald von Wolkenstein stood as though unbothered, holding a scented handkerchief over his nose.
“Sir Oswald... are you all right...?”
“When I was young, I crossed the Black Sea and traveled as far as Jerusalem. Waves like these are no different from a cradle.”
He stroked his beard with a showy air, but Oswald’s face was just as pale as everyone else’s.
He might have endured such a voyage in his youth, but now that he was over fifty, this rough journey was considerable suffering even for him.
Then a thunderous roar shook the deck.
“Can none of you keep your wits about you?!”
It was Jan Žižka.
Even on the rocking ship, Jan Žižka stood upright like an ancient tree rooted in the earth. Žižka’s legs, clad in thick leather boots, did not move as though nailed to the deck.
“G-General...”
“We will reach Thessalonica soon. And you all look half dead after a little splashing around. Are you truly soldiers of His Majesty?!”
At Žižka’s fierce rebuke, the soldiers forced their staggering bodies upright.
Ondřej asked between gasps.
“General... don’t you get seasick?”
“A soldier does not blame their surroundings. Whether at sea or in the mountains, they must do their duty wherever and whenever it is required.”
The firm answer filled the soldiers with awe once again.
As expected of General Žižka.
He could crush mere seasickness through force of will.
But then Žižka turned and looked out toward the distant sea. Žižka’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, so faintly that no one would have noticed.
‘...Damn it.’
Žižka forced down the sour bile rising in his mouth.
Žižka too was a Bohemian, inland-born to the bone. Žižka had spent a lifetime on horseback, not on this mad collection of wooden planks.
Žižka’s stomach twisted and Žižka’s head spun just like theirs. No, given Žižka’s age, it was worse, not better.
But Žižka was a general. They could not disgrace themself by clinging to the railing and vomiting in front of the soldiers.
‘Endure. I must endure. I am a rock. I am steel. It is not my stomach that is rolling. It is the world...’
Žižka gripped the railing hard enough to crush it and desperately hypnotized himself. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his back.
Just then, a cry erupted from the lookout at the top of the mast.
“Land! Land in sight!”
The shout was like a trumpet of salvation to the soldiers.
Matej and Ondřej clung to the railing, determined to see land even if they had to crawl there.
A faint coastline appeared in the distance.
Then, along that coast, the outline of a vast city slowly emerged.
Thessalonica.
The Eastern Roman Empire’s second heart.
But what they saw bore little resemblance to a romantic harbor.
Boom!
A deafening roar, loud enough to reach them far out at sea.
Columns of black smoke rose throughout the city, and ominous red flashes burst beyond the walls.
Matej’s mouth fell open.
“W-What is that? Don’t tell me that is all...?”
The walls around the harbor still stood, barely. But the walls facing inland had been completely swallowed by a black mass of troops, like a swarm of ants.
Every time house-sized stones from trebuchets and enormous early bombards struck the walls, the entire city seemed to scream.
Foscari shouted urgently to the captain.
“More speed! We must enter the harbor!”
He could not hide his anxiety. If that city fell, the vast funds and diplomatic effort Venice had poured into it would turn to nothing in an instant.
No, all Mediterranean trade might be endangered.
“Prepare to land! Once we dock, disembark the Bohemian mercenaries at once and send them to the walls! The food and supplies must be unloaded immediately as well!”
Foscari was already drawing the landing operation in his mind.
Bring the ship into the harbor, disembark the troops, enter the city, and establish a defensive line. It was the most conventional and sensible course of action.
But then,
“Stop.”
A low, heavy voice cut across Foscari’s orders.
It was Jan Žižka.
“What? Stop? General, the city is on the verge of collapse!”
“Look there.”
Žižka gestured toward Thessalonica’s harbor.
Several Ottoman galleys prowled around it like wolves, while earthen artillery positions hastily raised on the coastal hills aimed at the harbor entrance.
“They are not fools. Bringing our ships into that obvious entrance would be little different from suicide. Do you wish to become chunks of meat beneath a rain of cannonballs and arrows?”
Žižka’s assessment was cold and precise.
A landing operation, especially when the harbor lay within enemy range, was little different from suicide. While the ships stopped and dropped anchor, helplessly exposed, the enemy would enjoy all the target practice they wished.
“T-Then what are we supposed to do? Watch from out here and go home? Look! Part of the wall is collapsing! The city may not survive the night!”
Žižka did not answer.
Instead, he narrowed his sole eye and surveyed the enemy camp in the distance.
The Ottoman artillery emplacement set up along the coast.
It held an enormous bronze bombard.
A cold smile spread across Žižka’s lips.
“Sir Foscari. Can your sailors secure the oars and keep the ship from rocking?”
“What? Since it is a galley, the oarsmen can hold against the water to some extent, but... why do you ask?”
“That will be enough.”
Žižka turned around.
The Bohemian soldiers who had just been sprawled across the deck, vomiting their guts out.
Now their hands were skillfully pulling the waterproof tarpaulins off the steel cannons.
Foscari still looked blank with disbelief.
“General, what... what are you planning to do? Surely not...?”
“You are correct.”
Žižka gave a grim smile.
Žižka’s eye was already tracking the backs of the Janissaries climbing the city walls.
“We will destroy them from here.”
Footnotes:
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