Revelations

By Greg Alldredge

Only a fool believes...

... in witchcraft.

Stalking the border between the Ottoman and Christian worlds, only the bold survive this wicked mystical land.

Does a power older than Christianity haunt these untamed passes?

It doesn't matter...

Thaddeus found himself ready to quit,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Alldredge
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781949392432

Book preview

Thaddeus of Venice

Revelations

By Greg Alldredge

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-949392-43-2

Contact the author at

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© 2020 Greg Alldredge

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover Art by Ryn Katryn Digital Art.

Melinda Campbell, Copyeditor

www.MCEdits.com

This book is for anyone who prefers the company of a good book over mindless chatter.

Chapter 01:

Chapter 02:

Chapter 03:

Chapter 04:

Chapter 05:

Chapter 06:

Chapter 07:

Chapter 08:

Chapter 09:

Chapter 10:

Chapter 11:

Chapter 12:

Chapter 13:

Chapter 14:

Chapter 15:

Chapter 16:

Chapter 17:

Chapter 18:

Chapter 19:

Chapter 20:

Chapter 21:

Chapter 22:

Chapter 23:

Chapter 01:

The stench of sex permeated the very plaster that covered the walls of the small cell given Thaddeus to sleep in. Despite the exhaustion that settled into his very bones, sleep eluded him.

The ruckus coming from the adjacent rooms didn’t help. If people were going to commit acts of depravity, the least they could do was have the common decency to do it quietly and in secret, like the clergy.

With so many calls to the supreme being, it was a wonder why the Almighty didn’t reach down from the heavens and search out the reason for such a huge quantity of entreatments.

The hope for a comforting sleep during the falling snow wasn’t in the cards.

Something nibbled on Thad’s leg under the woolen blanket. One more insult to injury, and no matter how hard he scratched, the little bloodthirsty demon escaped death. The thought of what might have nested in the straw-filled mattress only served to make his skin crawl. This night’s sleep would have no happy ending for Thaddeus.

The inquisitor should have said something when the scribe from Padua suggested they move off the road for the night. The trip from Trieste through the mountains into the once Kingdom of Serbia had been a toil. Ever-present danger only served to increase the stress of the journey. The blue sky of spring remained out of sight. The clouds and haze of winter held the mountain passes in their icy grip for many months to come. Every hour that passed only lowered the temperature more. Before they found this place, their breath hung heavy on the air, a frozen fog.

At least they had not been tested by highwaymen or the troops of a misguided warlord. In warmer weather, both roamed these tracks and operated by the same rules. Take what they wanted. Kill any who resisted. In that respect, the wet weather served to keep most brigands out of the cold.

Once the snow started to fall, Thaddeus lost all sense of humor. After the escape from Trieste, his humanity seemed to return. Hunger, thirst, the need for rest, all cried out for his body to take a break. A gentle twist of his head caused his neck to pop in a series of cracks. Even the joints of his body protested the cold.

Damn all this nonsense, Thad cursed his poor luck. Try as he might, the thin pillow did nothing to stop the sound.

At least the scribe Geovanni had stopped complaining. Since they left the relative warmth of the coastal Hapsburg city, he bundled up and shut his mouth. It gave them both a chance to focus on staying warm.

Thad had no good explanation as to what happened to them. The black drug Geovanni found caused him to imagine the worst things possible, but even that couldn’t explain the dead that lay in the pair's wake.

Just five days ago, they escaped the cave of death.

The snow started this morning and didn’t look like it would halt anytime soon. Not yet midday, the track they traveled would be hard to traverse on foot if the storm continued through the day and night.

Despite the need to travel east to search out the witch Babaroga, the pair might need to wait for the road to clear. Thad doubted even the saints could pass under these conditions.

Any roadhouse deep in Ottoman territory should have been a safe place to wait out the storm. Thad assumed anywhere had to be better than the cold of the open forest road.

Unfortunately, his assumption was wrong.

Thad never expected the roadhouse to be a brothel.

The establishment was quiet when the pair stepped through the door. The lower level sat empty, not a working woman to be seen. A lone buxom, oldish woman taking care of the tavern was the only person in sight. With unkempt hair that reminded him of Medusa’s snakes. The woman’s two missing front teeth caused her to speak with a slight whistle.

We need two rooms for the night, Thad said as soon as they knocked the snow off their boots and fluffed the wet from their cloaks.

Geo added, Our pack animals need to be tended.

Yes, sir… I’ll have my boy see to it… He is thicker than a bag full of rocks, but he is honest and trustworthy.

Thad couldn’t think of how desperate a man might need to be to bed the woman.

Her simplistic question seemed harmless: Will ya be needing a bedwarmer as well?

Unfamiliar with the local euphemisms concerning the sex trade, the pair moved into the room. A table next to the fire beckoned—the cheerful glow casting long shadows over the dark room.

Geo coughed. We want a warm bed and a hot meal. Some wine to wash it down with would be a blessing. Anything to shake off this dreaded chill. He threw his leg over the rough bench, with Thad following suit.

Yes, sirs, only our finest. She walked from behind the counter. She needed to turn sideways so her hips would fit. Her hands wrung a cloth to dry them. I’m assuming you fine gentlemen have coin?

Geo glared at the woman before Thad reached out his hand and stayed the scribe’s words.

Thad pulled a purse from his belt. Dropping the leather pouch on the table with a satisfying clink of coins inside, he asked, Will this do?

The inquisitor didn’t blame the woman. Now dressed in the clothes of commoners, they had none of their former gravitas. High hard-soled boots, dark woolen pantaloons, a light linen shirt protected by long cloaks. They looked like positively normal men, perhaps merchants or other travelers. Only the dirt from traveling divulged their true identities of being from away.

After a short debate, the pair shed their robes of office once they departed the lands governed by Trieste. Now that they traveled the territory allied with the Muslims, it was better to not announce their professions, nor city of origin. Honestly, the less strangers might glean about them and their cause, the better—no need to answer unwanted questions.

The only indication of the wealth, aside from what the two asses held, each man remained armed with a rapier and dagger, the blades hanging from baldrics slung over each shoulder. The cloaks did a wonderful job of hiding the weapons from closer inspection. They were clearly not the property of commoners.

These were dangerous tracks for the men. Venice and Istanbul had a long and tumultuous history. Chances were high a number of people they encountered would gladly string the pair up by the neck if they knew their true identities.

One hundred years prior, the ruler of Serbia married off his daughter to the Turkish sultan, forming a halting peace. The ink on the wedding contract was barely dry before the wars started once more. These mountains in the Balkans had seen one invading army after another. Over and over, competing forces marched through these passes, only to be turned back the next season or two.

Crusaders of one form or another were ready to ride into the valleys in quests of glory. All this was taking place in a land of convergence between east and west. All the people knew was war, at least for the past couple of hundred years.

The age of Christian Crusaders invading from the north might be ancient history, but the battle between Christian Europe and Muslim Asia raged on. Once peace was reached with one country, another war would quickly take its place.

Bohemia, Serbia, Croatia, Wallachia, and Hungary were Christian countries that at one time or another sided with the Turks. Anything to keep the rulers in control. When the winds shifted, they would declare war once more. A few years acting as a buffer for the Muslim Ottomans offered some amount of halting peace to the region. It was the best any peasant might hope for.

Harmony never lasted. The battles raged off and on for generations. Back and forth, these mountain valleys were traded from one side or the other. The inhabitants had little say in who ruled them. No matter a king, warlord, or sultan, the peasants’ struggle to survive remained the same, oppressive and precarious.

Currently, Venice was at peace with the Turks. Everyone knew that peace would end one day—too many competing interests for any accord to last. Once either side thought they held an advantage, the fighting would resume.

Barely forty years ago, Constantinople fell to Sultan Mehmed II, the end of the eastern Roman Empire served as the beginning of the end of Genoa and the rise of Venice. Other cities of the peninsula continued with varying degrees of success.

The fighting with swords might not currently be hot, but the battle over trade and ideas never halted.

Now was not the time to proclaim their allegiance. Better to travel incognito. They didn’t need to battle the whole of the Ottoman forces. That was an evil better left for another time.

Wine and meal served, Geo stared at the fire.

Thad spooned through the thin vegetable soup. His upper lip curled in disgust. Have you no meat? He took a drink from the cup before inspecting the contents.

The woman raised an eyebrow. I’m sorry—

Thad was certain some wise answer was about to tumble from the innkeeper’s lips, but Geo let out a low growl, effectively cutting the woman’s reply short.

That is the best we have at the moment. She finished up her words. Let me get you more wine. She hurried off before more was said.

Calling the cup she served swill was a degradation to pigs and what they ate. The drink was more like stagnant water that had run past a vintner than any wine he’d ever tasted.

He risked another drink from the cup, his thin mustache parting the scum that floated on the top. It didn’t taste better the second time down. Age would never save this cask.

His traveling companion was lost in thought, and Thad had no urge to pull him from his gloom.

The thought of food sat heavy on Thad’s stomach. He had not been able to keep most normal fare down for long, save rare meat. Not sure what ailed them but both suffered from some malady they could not shake.

I’m going to my room. Thad stood from the table. The longer they traveled, the harder he found it to stay awake during the day.

A quick check to see if the pack animals had been tended to and the inquisitor made his way up the slanted stairs. Each step creaked under his weight. It would be a miracle if the building didn’t fall on their heads while sleeping.

The dark snow clouds turned the day into dusk. Traveling at night wasn’t all bad. It gave the pair a better chance of not being harassed. They were still blessed or cursed with an uncanny ability to see in the limited light of darkness, and a way to sniff out the scent of danger before it struck. They moved easily through the night. However, they could not walk on top of the deepening snow.

Right now, Thad only wanted sleep after traveling several days and nights to this remote mountain location. He thought he’d earned a brief respite.

He was wrong.

Shortly after laying his weary head on the thin pillow, the fun and games started.

The two from Venice weren’t the only travelers who sought out shelter from the brewing storm. Before long, the room below was filled with all manner of men seeking company. Ladies who held rooms above, or came from unknown sources, arrived looking for company as well.

When the men from the local town left their families early for the warmth of a stranger’s bed, the walls of the inn echoed with the sounds of hasty courtship.

His flat pillow wasn’t enough to hide the racket. Screams of pleasure wasn’t the correct term. More like the sound of pigs rutting, mixed in with a slap of rickety wooden bedframes against plaster walls. From the racket, it was a miracle any of the bed ropes remained tight during the exercise. In the light from a single candle, he watched dust float down, dislodged from the rafters in the commotion.

That was how Thaddeus fell asleep, cursing the scribe and their bad luck.

There was a feeling or a dream. He was back in Venice, and Mary was serving him his favorite bowl of gruel for breakfast.

Normally his dreams had become an enemy. He worked hard to stay awake so he would not see the horrors his nightmares continued to portend.

But this time was different. In that moment, all misery was forgotten. He was home, and all was right with the world. He had his gruel and weak barley wine for breakfast. Life was good.

It wasn’t to last. Geovanni from Padua had searched him out. The scribe opened his mouth to speak, and the sound of a raven’s caw came out.

The sound grated on Thad’s ears, as more birds came flying into the dream. Somehow, Thad knew it all was a dream, and that made him all the more furious. He couldn’t escape the aggravating man even in sleep. The way his luck progressed, the man from Padua would follow him even after death. He imagined the scribe waiting for him at the gates of heaven rather than Saint Peter.

Angry, Thad opened his eyes. The dim sunlight had disappeared, his single candle burned low. The light flickered in the draft-free room. The sound of sex was gone, replaced by the caws of crows or perhaps ravens. Both a bad omen. The smell of smoke told him the sun must be coming up soon. The breakfast fires must be burning—someone cooked meat. The scent served to make his mouth water.

He’d slept through the entire night.

The sound of celebration and intercourse had stopped.

Thaddeus spoke to himself, Strange.

The room remained warm despite the frozen weather outside. Rolling from the bed, he padded to the window that overlooked the courtyard.

Several things struck him. It still snowed, hard. It looked deep enough to scrape the pack animals’ bellies.

Second, out of the corner of his eye, a dark shape moved in the courtyard. Like an animal, it prowled about on all fours. Huge like a wolf. Memories made Thad’s heart skip a beat. It disappeared into the shadows before he got a good eye on the beast.

The final and worse realization: the inn was ablaze. Fire burst from the open window next to his.

That was Geo’s room. Maybe the scribe had escaped the inferno.

The unexpected flames caused the man to jump away from the window. He knew this ancient wooden building would not last long, but he was shocked by his lack of action. The fire caught him completely by surprise. For the first time, he missed his heightened senses.

He wasn’t dressed to escape into the frigid night storm. Precious time was needed, time he wasted in a mental debate. Momentarily frozen by indecision, he stood in the middle of the room.

His choices were limited: run half naked into the snow and face freezing to death or take the time to dress and maybe be burned alive.

A woman’s scream, cut short, forced him into action. Better to meet his maker fully dressed, he thought.

The simple clothes they traveled in made dressing easy, only the boots slowed him. He didn’t wait to fully lace the damned things. The last thing he grabbed was his baldrics and weapons. A man didn’t go about unarmed in these dangerous times.

Smoke poured from under the inner door. Now, the screams of the dying echoed from outside. Despite the danger, Thad pushed his door open.

The nude body of a dead woman lay supine outside the door. She hadn’t burned to death. Her throat was covered in blood where her windpipe once was. She was murdered in a most gruesome fashion. Throat ripped out by an animal.

Thad didn’t stand at the open door for long. The