chapter SEVENTEEN

 

 

 

 

Birds sleep as we do, waking at night to cluck or purr, seeking reassurance. Then they puff their feathers, tuck back within their slumber, trusting that all is well. I watched the sleeping pigeons, wearing the cloak Hubert’s attacker had left behind.

It was still night. I sat for a long time while Hubert vomited, held his head in his hands, and moaned. I kept watch along the street and the canal lest the reveling attackers rise up against us again.

Swallows stirred in the eaves, and I took comfort in the consultations the little fowl made, each to each.

“Great misery,” said Hubert.

“If you can’t stand,” I said, “I can carry you.”

“Carry me!” he said, as though the thought gave him shame.

Hubert felt along the wall as he walked, stopped to cough and to feel his ribs through his blouse. Each step he was like a man crossing fragile ice. I kept glancing back, expecting to see shadows slipping from arch to corridor, but a night watchman’s voice lifted somewhere on another courtyard, and I wondered if some dark, blessed hour had arrived, when no man should stir beyond house or ship.

Hubert paused before a window, the wooden frame open like a door, and took a half step back, and bent low, peering.

“Glass!” he said at last. “Like my father’s house in England.”

The window frame was spanned with clear glass, and in the dim moonlight we could see our reflected forms, stooping and peering like dim-witted fools. The pane was lightly stippled, marred with a hint of bubbles, like beer.

No one stirred within, and the silence of the town was nearly perfect, except for our footsteps. When I spied a winesack full beside a sleeping man I lifted the wine and drank it all, every last swallow.

We scurried down an alley between casks and bales, and when a watchman challenged us, I responded, “Sant’ Agnese,” pronouncing the ship’s name, and the name of our guardian saint, as I had heard the sailors pronounce the words.

The watchman held out a pike, in a cross-body stance, blocking our path. He wore leather armor with exaggerated, high shoulders, and a close-fitting iron helmet. The cross on his chest hung from a chain of gold and some lesser metal, gleaming with pretty menace in the starlight.

Beyond was a forest of ships and galleys tied to the wharf in the darkness. A heavy curtain swept my ankles behind me as I turned—the black, heavy cloak Hubert’s attacker had left behind at his flight.

I felt within the cloak, and I slipped out a soft leather purse, lambskin, with a doe-hide drawstring. I pinched a coin in my finger, some foreign silver I did not recognize, but which I knew from its size and weight to be a quarter year’s wage for even a Venetian pikeman.

“And a good night to you,” I said.

With a swirl of the cape and a disjointed sensation of both triumph and stealth I strode up and down the wharf, and when another sentry challenged me I challenged him right back, with the name of our ship.

“In Jerusalem was my lover slain,” I sang. In Jerusalem watz my lemman slayn.

A happy song, despite the mournful lyrics. I was sleepy, and the ship’s deck slippery under my feet.

Strong hands gripped me from behind—stronger than those quick, light-footed Venetians. My own hands were held behind me, chains were brought, and yet again I was carried. I was beginning to enjoy the sensation, lifted along like a battering ram.

 

When I woke again I could not move, and did not want to.

Hubert was chained beside me, a pale face in the dark. “I hear animals,” he said.

Footsteps echoed on the deck above.

“Animals of every sort!” Hubert said.

I would die soon, I knew from the throbbing of my brain. To turn my eyeballs caused darts of green lightning. I rolled to one side. If I called for help no one would hear me, except to stick a spear into me and end my suffering.

“Edmund,” Hubert whispered. “Are you all right?”

I pretended I did not hear him, not out of unkindness, but because my tongue was a dry flake, a fragile thing that would break if I sought to use it.

“I can hear you breathing,” said Hubert, hopefully.

Each bone in my skull was a fragment. “I breathe,” I intoned.

Hubert was right: we were chained in the ark of Noah, a vessel laden with duck and sheep, horse and hen, each creature with a voice, and using it.

Sudden daylight stabbed the dark. I closed my eyes tight. Venetian voices laughed, commented, cautioned, each sailor unnaturally lively. The fine, dry sound of grass rustled somewhere in the hold, and the fragrance of hay. Hooves continued to knock and shuffle overhead. The ship settled, taking on its new weight. Loops of cordage rustled on the decking, and the ship gave a dignified start, moving unmistakably through the water.

And then the ship jerked to a halt, distant voices jabbering, calling. Voices lifted, the churn of the tiller and splash of the sweeps echoing in our confinement.

Captain Sebastiano shouted, cajoled, swore by Saint John and the Sacred Blood. He had a laugh that meant damn you to hell, and another that meant my soul lightens at the sight of you. Bare feet pattered, a horse somewhere raised a scream of disbelief. A rooster celebrated what must be day, out there in the world of the living. Other creatures made guttural, expressive noises. Bears, I thought—or pigs.

When Wenstan brought us each a dish of smoky, oily ham, he spoke in a low voice. “I have never seen Sir Nigel so displeased,” he stammered.

“Will we stay chained here forever?” asked Hubert, with no self-pity but with an urgent, personal curiosity.

“Forever?” asked Wenstan. He considered—or perhaps he paused because of his stammer. “Nothing lasts so long.”

“What happened to my cape?” I heard myself croak.

“That rag you were wearing?” said Wenstan airily. “It has been returned to its rightful owner, along with the money.” Wenstan had trouble with the last word. “The money,” he repeated. “The coins you stole.”

“I stole nothing,” I said, in my most knightly voice, but inwardly I crumbled.

“The night watchman,” said Wenstan. “He recognized the purse.”