They marched us from the courtyard to the tower overshadowing the Proitides Gates. Normal thieves weren’t sent to towers. The towers of Thebes were reserved for people the Catalans considered truly dangerous. Rumors of the torture that occurred at the Proitides Tower made my throat dry and my palms damp. I’d faced my share of fears but nothing like the horror the tower held.
The entrance was on the second level, so they marched us up the outside stairs and into the thick walls of ashlar masonry. Several arches supported the ceiling, and a dozen guards sat on benches or before tables with cards and wine.
Pertusa led the group and halted us just inside the tower. He motioned to one of the guards and whispered something to him. The guard went up the inner staircase to the top of the tower, then returned with Andreas.
Anger bit at me. That was how they’d known to watch Francisco—because Andreas had told them. But the anger softened as he stepped closer and I noticed the chains that held his wrists and the bruises that lined his face. He may have betrayed us, but he’d also been beaten.
Pertusa spoke louder now. “You may release him. As promised, boy, you’re free to go now that we have your associates.”
The guard unlocked the chains around Andreas’s hands, and Andreas shuffled toward the door. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, but he slowed as he reached me. “I’m sorry, Mouse. They caught me two days ago.”
I wanted to ask him how much he’d told them. He didn’t know about the archbishop’s involvement, but if he’d said too much, Don Oliverio might be in danger. I couldn’t ask him in front of the Catalans, so I said nothing.
Pertusa pointed the guards toward a staircase leading up, silently commanding them to take Gil and me to the top of the tower. Wisdom suggested I meekly follow the guards. There were so many of them, and the tower had only one exit.
But sometimes the wisest choice wasn’t the best choice. I stomped on the foot of the guard to the left of me and elbowed the guard to the right of me, then lunged at one of the tables, toppling it as I ran at Andreas. “You filthy traitor!” I shouted.
I was captured within moments. Two guards again held me, only now they kept their swords drawn. Pertusa looked on in annoyance. Andreas, his face pale with fear, ran from the tower.
They forced us up the stairs to the tower’s top floor and shoved Gil into the cell. He stumbled but caught himself with his good hand.
Pertusa walked up to me and gripped my chin while the guards still held my arms so I couldn’t jerk away. “What a pestilent little thief you are. I fully intend to punish you . . . as soon as we retrieve the rest of your little group.” He slapped me across the face. Hard. “We’ll find them soon. And then you’ll pay.”
He nodded, and the guards threw me inside the cell with far more force than needed. I held up an arm to keep from smashing into the wall and only partially succeeded. I could have been graceful if I hadn’t been trying to balance the flagon of wine I’d snatched from the guard’s table and wrapped inside my cloak. They’d thought I was trying to attack Andreas or escape—and I certainly wouldn’t have turned down an opportunity for freedom—but I’d known escape was impossible. And I’d seen how revenge could sow disaster. Besides, if they’d beaten the information out of him, Andreas had earned my pity, not my contempt.
My desperate attempt to get away from the guards had been motivated by the blood I’d seen dripping down Gil’s arm as we’d been hauled through the dark streets of Thebes. Torchlight had shown it growing worse and worse on our march. We were going to need wine. Much of it had sloshed out and spilled on my tunica when they’d thrown me inside. I hoped enough was left to clean his wound.
The guards slammed the barred door shut and locked us in. I hoped they would never find Rasheed, Sebastie, and Francisco. Some of my reasons were genuinely good—I didn’t want them to get caught. Some of my reasons were selfish—while Pertusa searched for them, he would be too busy to take his revenge on me.
I sat next to Gil. Not much light made it in from the torch that hung in the stairwell, but I could see his shape. We hadn’t had a chance to talk since we were surrounded in the courtyard.
“Why did you let go of the rope?” His voice was soft, touched not with anger but with sorrow. “You could have escaped.”
It had happened so fast that I wasn’t completely sure myself. “I think it was surprise that made me let go of it when they shot you. And wanting to help you kept me from grabbing it again. How bad is it?”
“Just muscle. Father Simon could fix it easily enough, but in here . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Do you have your flint?”
I felt him move as he rummaged through the pouches on his belt. They’d taken his sword but hadn’t inspected anything else before they’d locked us away. He pressed his flint and steel into my hands. I pulled out the candle tucked into my belt, where I’d put it when we’d left the home with Francisco. On the third strike, I got enough of a spark to light some of the straw strewn about the cell, and from that, I lit the candle.
I peered at his wound. The bolt extended on either side of his left bicep. Not his dominant arm. That was promising, but I wasn’t optimistic enough to think we’d be in a position to test swords or fists against our captors. They were only keeping us alive with the hope of getting information from us. Execution lay in our future; it was just a matter of when. “This has to come out.”
“The bleeding will be worse.”
I untied my linen belt. It would serve as a bandage. The candle didn’t provide much illumination. There would be better light once the sun rose, but the cell itself had no windows—they were all beyond the door on the other side of the tower—so daylight wouldn’t be much of an improvement. I stood and rattled the door where the hinges met the stone wall. No one answered, so I rattled it again and shouted. Eventually, I heard footsteps. “Can I borrow your torch?” I asked. “Or can you fetch a physician? I’ve a wounded man here. He needs assistance.”
“You can both rot, for all I care.”
Rot was exactly what I was worried about. Rot and infection. The lighting would be better if we waited, but the injury might grow worse. And if the Catalans found Rasheed and the others, we might not have another chance.
“Lie down,” I told Gil. He was slumped over anyway, with his back against the cold stones of the cell. He complied.
“This will hurt.”
He nodded.
I brought the candle close, looking at the back and front of the injury. I didn’t want to pull the crossbow bolt back the way it had come because the tip might cause more damage. Nor did I want to pull the fletchings through the injury.
I poured some wax from the candle onto the floor, then stuck the candle on top of it so I’d have both hands free. They hadn’t taken my small knife, so I used that to cut away the left sleeve of his shirt. If needed, I could use that fabric for bandaging too. I ran my little knife around the shaft to make a notch in the wood near the fletchings and then made it deeper with a few more rounds.
“Have you ever done this before?” Gil asked.
“I’ve seen it done.”
Gil bit his lips and nodded.
“Brace yourself.” I broke off the feathered end of the bolt.
Gil inhaled sharply and then groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut.
I hated how much it hurt him, and I hated that my next move would be even more painful. But the injury wouldn’t improve with time, not with a bolt stuck inside.
“I’m sorry, Gil,” I whispered. Then I grabbed the tip of the bolt in one hand and his arm in the other and yanked.
“Ahh!” He cried, then clamped his jaw shut.
The bolt had hardly moved, but I could get a better grip on it now. I pulled steadily, slowly withdrawing it from his arm. It came out with a sucking sound. The bleeding was immediately worse, and Gil trembled a little at the pain. Before I bandaged it, I poured wine on both sides of the wound. It smelled like muscat. I hoped it was strong.
I wrapped the wound in the linen and tied it off. Then I used my tunica to wipe the blood from my hands. Gil’s forehead didn’t feel unduly hot when I checked it, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take for fever to set in. He felt clammy instead.
“I’m so sorry, Gil.”
He inhaled deeply. “No. It had to happen. Thank you.”
When he tried to push himself up with his good arm, I helped him sit. He glanced at the bandaged wound. Blood hadn’t yet soaked through the fabric. I hoped that was a good sign.
“They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?” While I had tended to Gil’s injury, I’d been able to focus on that, on taking out the bolt and binding up the wound, but now, a fear of the future crept back, and it was too strong to ignore.
“They might. But first they’ll want information. Rasheed and Sebastie should be able to avoid capture, so they’ll be searching a while. And then they’ll question us.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t give up information quickly. But we want them to believe Francisco de Lenda has fled to Negroponte. He has friends there who hired us to help him. That’s what we’ve been doing every time they’ve seen us—we’ve been looking for clues about de Lenda. That’s why we went to the banquet for Blanche de Ardoino and Pere de Folgueres. We thought there might be talk of another eligible Catalan bachelor—de Lenda.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t speak unless threatened. But if threatened, I’d make it convincing.
Gil continued, his voice so soft I could barely hear. “De Urtubia is coming with the Navarrese Company. They’ll try to take the city. We have to hope they take it soon and that the Catalans are so busy fighting that they forget all about their prisoners in the tower.”
I put my arms around my knees. Maybe de Urtubia’s men would be our salvation. Or maybe they’d be our death sentence. If the city was in danger of falling, the Catalans could decide to eliminate their prisoners. Gil might be important enough to become a bargaining chip, but a girl like me—a thief, a penniless former slave—no one would bargain for me. No one other than maybe Gil, and he was currently in no position to help.
I shivered. It was partly fear, and partly the wine that had spilled down my tunica. The dampness of my clothes and the icy stones of the tower snatched away my body heat.
“Are you cold?” Gil asked.
“Cold. And frightened.”
His smile was sad again but kind. “Fear and I are old acquaintances. I can’t do much to help with the fear, but maybe I can help with the cold. Come here. I’ll try to warm you.”
He motioned me closer and lay on his side. I curled up in front of him, with my back to his chest. He rested his injured arm on me, with his hand on my shoulder and his elbow covering mine.
“You smell like wine,” he whispered.
“It spilled when they threw me in the cell.”
“Where did you get it?”
Heat from his body was starting to warm me, and I relaxed as the chill left. “The guard’s table.”
“When you tried to attack Andreas?” When he spoke, I could hear it, but I could also feel it as his chest moved.
“I wasn’t trying to attack Andreas. And I wasn’t trying to escape. I knew you were injured, and I didn’t know if they were going to help you. I thought the wine might come in handy.”
“You risked them beating you so you could get wine for my wound?”
“Yes.”
His fingers moved on my shoulder. “I wish you’d held on to that rope. Then you’d be safe.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I might have a dozen crossbow bolts sticking out of me instead. And what would you have done without any help?”
“Bled more, I guess.” He sighed. “You’re a hard woman to figure out. Are you the frightened slave girl or the determined woman who can save a man from poison and smuggle him out of a villa right under the nose of the best knights in the Duchy? Or are you the beautiful temptress who can convince a young man to leave his bed in the middle of the night and follow strangers, even if it means going against his guardian?”
“I’ve always been whatever Thomas told me to be.”
He was silent for a while, but it didn’t seem quiet, not when I could feel him from my head to my toes. He was warm and comforting and something more. I hated that we were locked in a tower and might be tortured or executed before the next dawn, but I loved the way he cared for me, and I loved the way he held me.
The candle sputtered. Soon it would burn out completely.
I spoke into the stillness. “Sometimes I don’t know who I am, but those times when it’s been just you and me with no assignment getting in the way, those are the times when I come closest to being who I want to be. I’ll always be your friend, Gil.”
“And I am ever yours, no matter what happens.” He moved his head, and it felt like he might have kissed my hair, but I couldn’t tell, not with any certainty.
He started singing, very softly, one of those Basque lullabies he’d sung when I was healing from the injuries I’d received at Ballester’s estate. I hadn’t met many people who could whisper a song, let alone do so while filling it with so much raw emotion, but Gil was unlike anyone else I’d ever met. It shouldn’t have surprised me.