Three Women, Three Centuries, Three Reckonings - a Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "Heroica"

BOOK EXCERPT

Excerpt from Honoria’s Battle, the second story in the HEROICA collection

Early July 1683, Praetorian compound, Roma Nova city. Honoria Mitela has been questioning a Tatar spy and is reporting to her commanding officer. On a wider note, Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, is again under siege by Ottoman Empire forces.

‘His name is Aydar, Legate Aemelia, and he is a bastard son of Murad Giray, the Crimean Tatar khan.’

Honoria stood stiffly in front of the senior legate in the praetorium at the centre of the camp compound. The stone walls kept most of the summer heat out, but Honoria still felt warm even in her lighter summer tunic. Ursa Aemelia was a fearsome woman, a veteran of many battles; she always made Honoria feel like a twelve-year-old instead of an experienced Praetorian officer of twenty-eight.

‘And?’ The legate leant back, her gold-edged cloak falling away from her shoulders to rest in crimson folds on the chair back. She frowned at Honoria. ‘Then execute him.’

‘If it pleases you, domina,’ Honoria continued, ‘I think we may use this to our advantage.’

The legate raised one eyebrow. ‘You remember the letters from John Sobieski of Poland asking for our aid in relieving the Vienna siege?’

‘Of course, but some of the loudest voices in the damned imperial council are still trying to convince the imperatrix that the Ottomans wouldn’t dare attack us.’ She snorted and jabbed a finger in the direction of the marble frieze on the stone wall, showing a map of Roma Nova and its neighbours. ‘We lie on the edge of their territory – admittedly the other side of a mountain barrier – but nevertheless only fifteen miles away, for the gods’ sake!’ The legate’s face threatened to take on the red of her cloak.

‘Just so, domina,’ Honoria replied. ‘In my humble estimation, although the mountains have protected us in past ages, if the Ottomans prevail and take Vienna, we are next in line and thus in peril of destruction. For purely practical reasons, we must stand with the Poles and the Imperial Austrians before it is too late.’

‘I fully agree with you, Mitela. Try getting your mother to convince the rest of the council to sanction our expedition.’

‘Be assured, Legate, Comes Mitela is bringing every drop of eloquence to the matter to so persuade her peers.’ Honoria closed her lips tight. In truth, her mother was fighting the rest of the council’s over-caution tooth and nail and using every political stratagem she knew. ‘Nonetheless,’ Honoria continued, ‘my scouts report all is not well between Crimean Tatar and Ottoman. The former owe allegiance to the latter and must perforce march with them. I estimate twenty thousand Tatars east of Vienna. This Aydar was sent to Roma Nova to spy, but under duress. He is hardly recognised in his family as his mother was ‘harvested from the steppes’ as they euphemistically call their slave-raiding. So he has little love for his father and clan, especially as they branded him with their tamga when he ran away at eight.’

‘Yet the blood of Genghis Khan runs in his veins. How can we be sure his hatred of the khan is genuine? And why in Hades did they send him to spy on us now?’

‘Because he can pass as a European,’ Honoria said. ‘He is light-eyed and has pale skin and brown hair. And they still hold his mother. He saw it as a way to escape and said his mother urged him to go. Somehow, he knew I led the intelligencer group.’

‘Hm. Worrying, although on reflection, he could have known your name from when we negotiated the ransom for Comes Sella’s daughter from the Ottomans last year.’

Honoria shivered as she remembered receiving Daria Sella back in exchange for a large chest of gold and silver. The poor girl, seventeen, thin and conspicuously with child, was silent and weeping between two austere chain-mailed janissaries, one of whom was gripping her wrist. As soon as the exchange had been made, the girl had stumbled towards Honoria and gripped her in a fierce hug, whispering ‘Thank you,’, before falling into her mother’s arms.

The following month, Honoria herself had led a punitive raid into Ottoman territory to track and eliminate Daria’s kidnapper. Previously hiding behind the Sultan’s protection at court, he had now reappeared at his own estate, boasting about his new wealth and his triumph over the Rum. Honoria was the one who fired her pistol at his heart. He was dead before he collapsed to the ground. Hers was the first torch thrown as they fired his estate after recovering the remaining gold and silver. The message was clear.

‘But how does this help us now?’ Legate Aemelia’s strong voice pulled Honoria out of her recollection. Honoria let her anger recede and gathered her wits together.

‘Sobieski’s latest dispatch again asks for our help – a legion, or even a detachment,’ she said. ‘I volunteer herewith to lead such a vexillatio. Sobieski says the southern walls are in peril. We cannot offer thousands of troops without our council’s approval, but we can provide engineering skills discreetly. But I think we could also attack in a different way, playing on their minds, their fears. And we’ll do it using their Tatar against them.’

‘How? No – first, tell me how you gained the Tatar spy’s confidence.’

‘I offered him his life and moreover, his freedom.’

The legate gave Honoria an incredulous look.

‘And how do you know he won’t turn his coat again?’

‘I guaranteed him lifelong sanctuary’ Honoria shrugged. ‘But I also promised I would personally hunt him down to the end of days if he betrayed us. And the world knows we Roma Novans never give up.’