TWELVE

 

 

Elayne gazed through her veil at the moneychangers. She had read of such in the Bible, of course, and once or twice perused, without much understanding, letters concerning matters of bullion and exchange from Italian merchants, passed along by Lady Melanthe for Elayne’s further education. But the quick fingers and rattle of wood against metal, the open piles of gold spread across the Turkey carpets, the coins that moved so rapidly and assuredly from hand to hand, almost as if they had an end and will of their own—it was far more alive than the dry lists of silver rates and wheat prices she had read in the letters.

Two boys hurried past, pelting over the pavement with scraps of paper jutting from their caps. In one corner a half-dozen of armed guards gazed on the throng with narrowed eyes. A lady—unveiled—with a train longer than she was tall, moved across the center of the square, causing considerable hindrance to the traffic. She leaned on the arms of her maids, tottering strangely, as if she were on stilts. Over it all stood a plain church wall, inscribed with a cross and words in Latin. Around this church may the merchant be fair, the weights just, and no false contract made.

"Look you there, Margaret." Il Corvo glanced down at the shrouded maid and nodded toward the lady dragging her train step-by-step. "What profits that one, profits Signora Morosini."

"My lord?" Margaret asked in a small, muffled voice.

"Venice taxes her whores," he said, reverting to the French tongue. "Morosini makes the assessments and collections, and takes the first one-fourth for his trouble. I believe he sells most of the slave girls to the houses. It is a copious revenue."

Elayne drew a faint hiss. "Does she know?"

"The Signora? Doubtless she does not inquire. Let us pray that she’s not too astonished when she finds herself immured alongside the other harlots in Hell."

The maid lifted her head a little. "I hope she may repent then, as I have," she said bravely.

"Indeed, we might have warned her of her danger ourselves, had we known!" Elayne said.

"Helas," the pirate said. "And abbreviated my very fruitful interview with Morosini even further, no doubt."

"Only for the sake of her immortal soul," Elayne murmured with innocence.

"Just let me collect my debt of him before you sink us entirely." He touched the empty sheath of his dagger and flicked his hand. Instantly Zafer and Dario moved, closing near as the pirate took Elayne’s arm and started across the square.

He had chosen to dress simply, in a black tabard over voluminous sleeves of white. The sleeves swayed easily as he walked, nearly covering his hands. He nodded to the guards who stared at them, and received only thin-lipped replies. Elayne could not tell if they knew him, or only watched more closely because he was a stranger.

Their hard stares made her feel uneasy. As he paused before one of the tables and handed Dario a sealed document, Elayne’s fingers tightened on his arm. She began to fear that the guards’ interest was more than a passing curiosity. But the banker, a stout man with a fine fur cap, only looked up from reading the document and gave Il Corvo a brief examination, bowing from the waist over his counter. "Good day to you, Signor. You have a voucher from the Morosini?"

The pirate opened his palm. A large jasper bead, broken in half, tumbled onto the rug.

The banker picked it up. He pulled a drawstring bag from beneath his robe, shaking a little collection of shattered beads from inside. With a brief, skillful rotation of his forefinger, he sorted out a black one, fitted it with the pirate’s half, and nodded, satisfied. He barked an order to his attendant, who ducked into the room behind and emerged with a strongbox. Together they began to weigh bags and count out the coin into bowls. As the golden piles grew, several guards drifted closer. The crowd around them began to thicken with onlookers.

Elayne was glad of her veil. She did not think she could match the pirate’s composure. Elayne had never handled any money in her life, not even small coins—the amount of gold that mounded up in neat stacks across the table was unnerving. Finally a dozen fat sacks of coin stood waiting on the rug. The banker looked up. "You are in agreement?"

The Raven requested them to empty one bag and weigh out the coins again. The scale came up short by four ounces.

The banker turned crimson. "My carelessness! I beg your mercy." He quickly tossed three more coins onto the scale, sending it tilting to the other side. "Niccolo! Transfer only the demand from Morosini, and enter a debit of two and a half from my own account into the ledger. My gravest contrition, sir! Pray accept the gift, to amend my embarrassment. You are satisfied?"

Il Corvo gave the attendant a look that lasted just long enough to make the man stand back, with his hands open and well-removed from the bags. The crowd about them quieted expectantly.

"I accept the tally," the pirate said.

An audible sound of relief stirred among the onlookers. Before the banker poured from his funnel tray into the bag, Il Corvo took a generous amount into his own purse, counting aloud to two hundred as he slid the gleaming gold across the table, coin by coin. With the rest of the money bagged, he nodded at Dario. The youth quickly began to tie the leather sacks together. He fashioned them into a pair of slings and handed one to Zafer, hefting the other over his shoulder with a grunt.

"You require escort, Signor?" the guard captain asked.

The Raven stood back. "Accompany them, if you will," he said. "I have further business."

The captain bowed his head and set about assigning his men. Elayne would have been pleased to return to the galley along with the coin and a pair of stout guards, but the pirate caught her elbow when she started after Margaret and the others.

"Let us take the air, carissima," he murmured softly. Elayne’s limbs went weak at the timbre of his voice. After the weeks of distance, his every touch now seemed fuel to the flame between them.

Margaret turned back, too, but he gestured for the maid to continue. She paused, then took two steps back toward Elayne. "But—should I not remain with my lady?"

"Do not question me," he said coldly. "Your service is not required."

The girl drew in a sharp breath, curtsied deeply, and hurried after Dario and Zafer, holding her arms crossed under her breasts. She had begun on the ship to wean her babe, but Elayne knew that after the entire morning away, she must be in some fretfulness to return.

"That was unkind," Elayne said, trying to keep her voice steady. She took a step away from him. "She meant to do well."

"Which is more than I can say of you, beloved," he said, leaning close. He brushed his body against hers, so lightly and hotly, a touch of his thigh at her hip, a dark presence at her shoulder. "If I order you not to look at that man beside the second column there, in the white tunic and gray cap, will you stare at him only to gainsay me?"

Elayne found herself looking toward the man he described, unable to help herself.

"Well done!" he murmured. "Nothing could be more fatally obvious." He lifted his hand, as if he were pointing out an item of notable decoration on one of the buildings. "Now fathom, that you can look five paces to his right, without turning your head. Don’t nod."

She bit her lip, checking herself from doing exactly that.

"Green hose, red slippers. When you see him, take my hand."

Without moving her head, she slid her glance to the right. Though the veil colored everything to a dim haze, she saw a young man in green hose and scarlet slippers with long, pointed toes. He talked animatedly with a banker, rubbing one foot up and down the other leg. She lifted her hand and slipped it into the pirate’s palm. His fingers locked with hers, closing swiftly.

"Who are they?" she whispered anxiously.

"I have no notion," he said, lifting her hand and pressing it to his lips, smiling down at her in such a way that it seemed he could see right through the veil.

Elayne snatched her hand away. "I thought there was some danger."

"Of course," he said, "there are three of the Riata hounds watching us right now. But they will be dead by Vespers, so do not concern yourself."

She closed her eyes and opened them. "Benedicite."

He turned and began to stroll across the square, smiling pleasantly, as if they were lovers in a garden. "I knew you would not like it. I almost didn’t tell you."

"Not like it!" she said faintly.

"You see that I was not so unkind to Margaret," he said. "It’s not my gold they want."

"What do they want?" she breathed.

"They want my death. They want you in their power. They will have neither. It is them or us, beloved."

Elayne made a little moan. She could not believe she was promenading in a public street, hearing such things.

They had crossed the piazza and reached another shadowed passage that passed under a building; a damp, black tunnel with an arch of brilliant light at the far end. Even Elayne could see that it would make an excellent trap. She wanted to protest his firm hold on her arm, steering her toward the passageway, but she feared now to make any move outside his guidance.

She stepped under the decaying archway. An odor of fish wafted from it, growing stronger as she moved forward. Through the veil, she could see almost nothing. She kept walking toward the arch of light at the other end. A figure was silhouetted there for a moment. With an echoing shuffle, the person came toward them. Elayne tensed. The Raven kept walking. They passed, with a brief word of greeting on both sides.

He paused, turning toward her. He lifted her veil and looked down at her, his face lit faintly from the side. He was the only thing she could see. With a light push, he moved her back, and she realized there was a stairway behind her now instead of solid wall.

He smiled, resting his arms about her. "A kiss, carissima," he said aloud, pushing the veil back and leaning to her mouth. He breathed lightly against her skin, not quite touching her. She could not comprehend that he wished to make love to her now—here—in this dank, public passage with his enemies lying in wait. But he kissed her, his fingers closing on her arms, his lips hard and quick as the pulse rose in her throat. Someone else passed them with a discomfited mumble of salutation. From the corner of her eye, she could see more pedestrians at either end, black outlines against the strong light.

"They are coming," he muttered beside her ear. "Scream loudly when it happens."

Elayne’s breath stuck in her throat. He kissed her again, blocking all her air, holding her from turning her head to see anything.

"Courage, Elena," he whispered against her skin, and suddenly flung her back hard.

She felt herself fall, tripping backward on the step. He vanished from her sight and sound as she went down on the stone stairs with a painful yelp. She heard a scuffle of feet, a loud crack and a heavy thud, as if a thick branch had broken. There was another shuffle, a sound like a deep hissing gurgle. Then nothing more.

Breathing frantically, she held frozen, her hands on the slippery steps, staring into blackness.

"Scream, curse you!" he muttered from somewhere in front of her. His sleeve made a dim flash. He reached for her, his face and hands pale in the dark.

Elayne’s throat worked. Only a faint high-pitched squeak would come out.

"Thief!" he bellowed, his unexpected roar discharging a thunder of echoes in the passageway. He pulled her upright into the passage. "Thief! Help! Robbery!" Then he squeezed her arm. "Will you scream?" he muttered.

She tried. She wanted to. Over the fish-market scent she could smell fresh blood; she felt something wet and slimy squelch beneath her feet. When her toe touched a form, heavy and lifeless, she gave another huffing squeak. The pirate made an exasperated sound.

"Thief!" he shouted. "Here! Help us!"

An invasion of people at the entrance blocked the arch of light. Their raised voices added to the echoes, creating a confused din. He put his arm around her shoulders in the disorder, walking her toward the entrance through the incoming throng of excited people. She was bumped and pushed in the dark, but finally they broke out into the light again. It seemed everyone in the square was crowding toward the passageway, craning their necks to see.

"They cut my purse!" the pirate shouted angrily. He held Elayne very close as attention turned toward them. "Tried to carry off my wife! God curse their souls! What evil is this in Venice?"

Shouts came from inside the passageway, cries of murder. People craned their necks. Orders and scuffles filled the damp air as the crowd inside began to back up, making way for men struggling to bear a body out.

Elayne stared. She had never seen the man before. He wore simple clothes of black, soaked to his waist with blood. His arms dragged limp across the pavement, his head bumped. Blood steeped his beard and flowed in a river of crimson from his throat.

She put her hand over her mouth, trying not to retch. 

"I know him!" someone exclaimed, pointing at the bearded man. "Marco, he is called."

"He’s dead!" another cried, as if no one could tell it. 

"Who killed him?" 

"It was a robbery."

"Go after them! Is the guard after them? Don’t let them escape!"

"Nay, they’re killed. Look, they’re killed!" Another gap opened by the passageway. They pulled a second body into the light. He had no blood on him, but he was dead, his mouth lolling open, his lifeless eyes staring at the roof of the porch.

"Those are the robbers? Are the robbers still loose?"

"He says they robbed him! Abducted his wife!"

"Stay by your banks! Don’t leave the counters!" someone shouted. The crowd washed back, leaving some space as a few hurried away toward their tables.

Someone caught the sleeve of the guard captain as he came out of the passage behind his men. "It’s not murder. They were vagabonds. I saw them watching this Signor withdraw his gold!"

"They tried to seize his wife!"

"Murder! They’ve been murdered!"

"They’re thieves. They’re not of Venice."

Amid a general clamor that the dead men were Genoese, or Pisanos, or possibly Neapolitans, the captain shook off his eager informants, as if it were no fresh news to him that they were foreigners. He looked up at Elayne and the Raven. "Your gentle wife is unharmed?" he asked.

The pirate turned Elayne in his arms, lifting her veil and holding her back from him a little. "You are not hurt?" he asked warmly.

At the edge of his jaw, there was a drop of blood clinging to  his skin. She pulled away, freeing herself. "You killed them." Her voice came out like a bird’s peep. "You killed both of them."

He gave a slight shrug, as if the mention of it embarrassed him. "By the grace of God. It seems that I did."

"You had no aid, Signor?" the captain asked incredulously. "No man at your side?"

"I sent my attendants back with the money and your guards, Captain. They will be at the quay by the Grain Office."

The guard captain frowned. He held up a long knife, covered in gore. "This is yours?"

"Nay. I have no license. I deposited my weapons at the Customs this morn." He scowled down at the bodies. "Had I not wrenched it from that fellow, it would be in my heart, and my wife—the saints only can say where she would be by now."

The onlookers murmured and sputtered, not a few in disbelief. The pirate drew her veil over her face again. As he pulled her close, against her resistance, she felt his fingers slide up under the gauze and press against the skin of her throat. It hurt. It made her heart beat dizzily in her head. She tried to protest and wrench away, but to her horror a swift darkness was rising in her brain. From a distance she heard him speaking to her, as if he were not stifling the very pulse in her throat himself. "Madam, are you well? Are you—"

The next she knew, the darkness opened to the hard pavement under her shoulder and a multitude of feet in her hazy vision. The pirate was bent over her, cradling her head.

"Move away!" he snapped as the crowd pressed in. "Move back!"

Elayne sat up, aided by many hands. She struggled for air through the veil, bewildered, trying to remember who she was and where.

"Take her to the church!" the guard captain said.

"Nay, let me take her to my galley," the Raven said, kneeling beside her. "She’s half-dead with fright. Escort us, keep me in your eye, but let her be made comfortable. Then I’ll return with you to make a deposition."

"Well enough," the captain said. He turned. "Who has the Signor’s purse? Count the coins. What should be in it, sir?"

"Two hundred ducats!" several voices chorused at once.

"Two hundred," the pirate agreed dryly. He looked up at the wall of the church across the square. "Let it be given to San Giacomo, in thanks for our deliverance, and restitution for my soul."

 

* * *

 

Elayne rubbed her throat, still trying to piece together what had happened. Her neck was sore and bruised from his fingers. Inside the stuffy little cabin on the galley, Margaret fluttered about her, trying to apply compresses which Elayne removed as soon as the maid pressed them to her forehead. The pup grabbed the cloths from her fingers and shook them vigorously, flinging drops of rose water into every corner of the small space, which made Margaret’s baby laugh and struggle in its swaddling. Matteo stood at the portal, his fingers curled anxiously about the ragged curtain as he held it open.

"I am not faint," Elayne said for the tenth time as the maid tore yet another strip of cloth to soak. Her voice was hoarse. "I am perfectly well."

"Yes, Your Grace," Margaret said, soaking the cloth in her bowl of rose water and stubbornly wringing the cotton to fold again.

Elayne wiped a drop from her eyebrow. They had taken away her blood-soaked shoes, but even attar of roses could not seem to cleanse the smell of butchery from her nostrils. "He is a demon," she said.

"Yes, Your Grace," Margaret replied, lifting the compress to Elayne’s forehead.

"I can’t live this way," Elayne said, pulling off the cloth and resting back on the pillows. "I refuse to do it."

"Yes, ma’am." The maid nipped her compress from Elayne’s fingers before the pup could steal it and prepared to soak the cloth again. Nimue bounded out onto the galley’s deck, looking for easier game.

"Margaret!" Elayne cried faintly. "He killed those men. In the dark. He could not even see them!" 

"Yes, Your Grace. I am so glad."

Elayne sat up. "As if they were brute animals. As if it were no more than slaughtering pigs."

"They were pigs, my lady. Riata pigs."

Matteo dropped his wide-eyed gaze and looked down at his toes. He stepped back and let the curtain fall closed.

"But—in the dark," Elayne said, staring after him at the swaying drape. "Two of them. He had no weapon."

Margaret put the compress to her forehead again. "Do you lie down, my lady, please."

"He told me he was a manslayer," Elayne said, closing her eyes.

"My lord is very skilled," Margaret said. "Zafer says he can kill anyone he pleases, Your Grace, no matter how well-guarded they believe themselves to be."

"God shield." Elayne slumped back on the pillows. Rose water dripped down into her eyes. While she had been craving his touch, dreaming of his kisses, he had been planning how he would cut a man’s throat. He had choked her pulse until she swooned, there in front of a hundred people, and none had seemed to know the difference. "He is a demon."

"Yes, Your Grace," Margaret said.

"And he has bewitched the whole lot of you!" she exclaimed. "I believe he can make the entire city believe he killed those men because they tried to rob us."

"I pray so, Your Grace." The maid’s brow creased. "I pray so."

Elayne plucked off the compress. "What would they do to a plain murderer?" she asked the ceiling of the cabin.

"A murderer would be hanged, I think, Your Grace."

"Hanged and beheaded and drawn and quartered," Elayne agreed harshly.

Margaret stopped soaking the cloth in the rose water. She made a little frightened whimper. Elayne stared at the planks above her. He had caressed her that way, made her tremble with desire for him, in full knowledge of what was to come. She thought of the long bloody knife and felt a furious revulsion in her throat. She could hardly say if she was more terrified for him, or of him.

She sat up. "Do not fear." She dipped both hands in the bowl and splashed cold water over her face. "They won’t execute him," she said angrily. "They could not. They can’t kill one of Satan’s own fiends."

 

* * *

 

He returned in the night. Elayne sat on the stern of the galley, hooded and cloaked in the cool air, watching a great harvest moon rise over the domes of San Marco and the glimmering roll of the water. She did not hear him come aboard; she only heard Dario’s soft salute, in between the magician’s snores, and a stir in the water below the ship as a gondola poled away.

Against the huge moon she saw his silhouette, moving over the cabin and rigging like a cat over rooftops. He landed silently on the deck before her. Elayne exhaled deeply, feeling as if she had been holding her breath for hours.

"The third Riata will not trouble us," he murmured.

"You have killed him, too?" she said. "What a comfort."

She could not see his face, only feel the warmth of his body near her in the night air. The Egyptian’s snoring filled the silence.

"Drowned," he said after a moment.

Elayne folded her fingers tightly in her lap. She could feel his bridal ring press into her bone.

"Did they accept your deposition?" she asked at length.

"In large part. They could not believe I had no weapon on me. The Quarentia voted to banish me from Venice for a month, as a precaution. But I have a day’s grace to absent myself."

"Fortunate," she said. "Just enough time to drown someone."

He leaned against the rail beside her, a blacker shape against the black night. "Elena. You did well."

"Grant mercy. Of course I am glad to satisfy you with my conduct."

"Even if you didn’t scream."

"I never scream. I merely swoon when I am strangled."

He paused. "I regret that," he said. "I ask your pardon." 

"Why should you? I am at your service, to poison or throttle as you please, am I not?"

"I will not do it again," he said. "I swear." 

"Ah, now I will sleep easy."

"You’re angry," he said. He touched her cheek with his knuckles. His hand seemed warm against the damp breeze off the water. "My hell-cat."

"Don’t call me that."

"She-wolf," he said.

"Demon!" she hissed.

"Aye. Ex-communicate and unshriven, too," he added. "Unless two hundred ducats can buy me relief."

She shivered in the night air. Margaret’s babe began to cry, a muffled sound inside the cabin. It wept and then quieted at the maid’s soft hushing.

"We must leave now," he said. "This galley will sail east at dawn, with Zafer and the others. You and I go west, under darkness, as fast as we can travel. Can you ride?"

"Yes," she said.

She did not move. He stood beside her. She thought of his hand at her back, the heat of his body so close to her in the Rialto. She hated the desire that rose in her yet, at his very presence. Silence fell again between them.

A great silence, a dark silence.

"Are you afraid of me?" he whispered.

Elayne rose. She pulled her cloak closer about her shoulders and turned away, leaving him in the dark.