SEVEN

      

 

The city of Venice seemed to rise from the green water like a glistening dream: a silent place, where voices drifted from unseen windows and the faint splash of the boatman’s pole was the only sound of passage. Elayne sat in the small silk-draped cabin with Margaret, both of them leaning to stare through their veils at the mysterious facades that glided past. Exotic pointed arches, their foundations awash, reflected plays of brilliant sunlight and darkness from the water. Stripes and diamonds adorned the walls. It seemed as if the silent city had been bedecked for a great celebration that no one had attended. 

Zafer stood behind them, his legs spread apart, his knee touching the maid’s back with each rock of the slender vessel. Beside his master, Dario also kept guard, his foot resting on the curved bow of the gondola, his gaze sweeping over the passing quays.

Though she had known them but a few weeks, Elayne found an unlikely comfort in their little company. On the island she had thought it wicked of him to train up youths and children in his vile craft, but in the midst of this foreign city, where Il Corvo was condemned and Elayne had no other protection, they seemed suddenly to form their own intimate band. 

None of them, she knew, would scorn her for the black desire she felt for their master, nor think it strange and sinful.  Any one of them, even Margaret, would spring to defend her safety with their life. They hardly knew what sin was, she thought. If the Raven countenanced a thing, they would accept it.

Elayne greatly feared that she was learning to do the same.

Somewhere to the north and west, across the flat islands and the calm lagoon, lay the princedom of Monteverde. Ever the uneasy ally of Venice—source of the famed Venetian silver, guardian of the mountain passes; as Venice sent her northern trade through Monteverde, the ships of the green-and-silver sheltered in the lagoon and sailed in the company of Venetian galleys to Constantinople and the east. The hurried lessons in alliance and trade that Countess Melanthe had imparted to Elayne seemed more real now. As Monteverde itself began to seem more real, and more threatening, a storm just beyond sight, the sky darkening with menace on the horizon.

The gondola bumped gently ashore beside an imposing wooden drawbridge. Serene Venice was not so peaceful here: the gondolas vied for space at the quay.  A multitude of bells began to ring. Figures in long robes brushed past one another, men of light skin and dark, a hundred different colors in the clothing and wildly diverse headdress. 

The Raven stepped lightly onto the wet landing, flanked by Dario and Zafer. None of them wore their blades; the customs officials had taken them into strong-boxes and handed back paper receipts. The youths stood by, their faces grim and alert.  Elayne rearranged the folds of gauze so that she could see through the haze. She did not care for it; it obscured her vision and choked her breath, but in Venice it was the proper attire for a modest woman. She did not care to be taken for an immodest woman here. Even if she was one.

Il Corvo’s voyage appeared to be a matter of money and business, stopping at ports along the way to visit merchants and collect payments in gold. But it was evident enough, listening between the polite words, that these payments were in return for the unspoken promise that the Raven’s brigand warships would not attack the merchant galleys. No one seemed to comprehend that he commanded no fleet or allies now. Or that if they seized him here, there would be no retribution on the sea.

The merchants were all exquisitely courteous to Il Corvo and his party. But Elayne could foresee that the price for detection would be death.

The Raven flipped a coin to the boatman as Dario helped Elayne onto the mossy steps. The pirate took her hand, his thumb sliding across the back of her palm. 

With so little, he set her to thinking of his body coupling hers, of the underground room, thoughts so immoral that they were near beyond comprehension.  There had been no opportunity for confession since the night in his secret room, and no repeat of the act—in the stifling, close quarters of the ship, it was Zafer or Dario who kept watch over her as she slept, while the Raven seldom came into the cabin at all if she were there.

But the utter chastity between them had merely closed the door on a hidden furnace. Elayne labored in a state of sin that would have astounded Countess Beatrice. On the galley she had sat in the place prepared for her under a swaying canopy and pretended to occupy herself with gazing at the dolphins that escorted them. But when the Raven wasn’t looking, she had watched him stand beside the deck rail, taking the motion of the ship easily, his hair tied back under a knotted sash. She thought of the sound he had made as he shuddered inside her; she felt his arms about her and the taste of his bruised skin on her tongue.

He kept a distance from her: a deliberate, taunting distance. Elayne affected not to notice him. She watched. She relived it again and again in her mind. And she knew that he was conscious of it, that he knew every moment where she was and what she was doing, as he knew the reach of his daggers. She held her breath and thought that when next he touched her in that way, she would shatter like a glass vessel into a hundred razor-edged shards of desire.

She pulled away. He made a soft sound of amusement and stood back. "Return with Zafer and Dario," he said to Margaret, as the maid rose to follow Elayne. "We have further business."

The girl curtsied deeply and sank back onto her seat, holding her arms crossed under her breasts. She had begun on the ship to wean her babe, but Elayne knew that she must be in some fretfulness to return.

"Let us take the air, carissima," Il Corvo murmured softly. 

"Is it safe?" she whispered, watching the gondola draw away, taking her fragile sense of security with it. 

"You’re with me," he said simply. He put his arm at her back, guiding her into a shadowed passage under the nearest building. The pavement and walls sweated dampness, their surfaces stained black and green by mildew.

They emerged onto a small piazza lively with people. Knots of men gathered near carpet-covered counters, dealing loudly with one another.

The pirate stood a moment, his hand still resting on the curve of her back, watching the trade at a table nearby. Amid bowls of gold and silver coins, a man wrote in a ledger while his assistant counted money into a triangular tray. He funneled the coins into a bag with a rush of silvery sound. Their patron lifted the bag high and turned with a shout, rushing toward another table to cast the coins down there.

Il Corvo smiled. He lifted his hand away from her. "The music and song of Venice," he said. "The island of Rialto."

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.

In one corner a half-dozen armed guards gazed on the throng with narrowed eyes. 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.

"If I order you not to look at that man beside the second column there," the Raven murmured, "in the white tunic and gray cap, can you prevent yourself from staring?"

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

"Well done!" he murmured dryly. "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 Franco’s 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 wouldn’t like it. I almost didn’t tell you."

"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. From the corner of her eye, she could see more pedestrians at either end, black outlines against the strong light.

"They’re 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 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 guardsmen 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. 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. 

"He’s dead!" someone exclaimed, as if no one could tell it. 

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

"No, they’re dead. Look, they’re dead!" 

They pulled a second body into the light. He had no blood on him, but his mouth lolled open, his lifeless eyes staring at the roof of the porch.

"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. "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. He looked up at Elayne and the Raven. "Sir. 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’re 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 to our ship, Captain. I had private business. "

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

"Of course not. 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, some in disbelief. The pirate drew her veil over her face again. As he pulled her close, 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. 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.

"No, 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," the pirate said. 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’m not faint," Elayne said for the tenth time as the maid tore yet another strip of cloth to soak. Her voice was hoarse. "I’m 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’s 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 didn’t hear him come aboard; she only heard Dario’s soft salute and a stir in the water below the ship as a gondola poled away.

Against the huge moon she saw his silhouette. 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. 

"Drowned," he said after a moment.

Elayne folded her fingers tightly in her lap. His bridal ring pressed into her bone.

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

"In large part. I still have some friends on the Quarentia. They voted to banish me from Venice. 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."

"Thank you. Of course I’m glad to satisfy you with my conduct."

"Even if you didn’t scream."

"I never scream. I merely swoon when I’m strangled."

He paused. "I regret that," he said. " But I needed to divert the guard captain. I ask your pardon." 

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

"I won’t 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.

"Yes. 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 didn’t 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. 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.

 

* * *

 

She could not live with him. The lies and ravishment, the study of poison and murder, the children left behind without mercy—all of that, she had borne, carried along on the tide of his will, drawn by his mystery, entranced by the way he moved and the thoughts he dared to entertain. Her other choices had seemed vague and distant, only leading to worse fates.

But she saw clearly now. She must get away from him. He killed so easily, so naturally, without mercy or regret. He lied as if angels commanded his tongue. It was his nature. And a part of Elayne—a deep, hidden, dreadful part of her—reached toward him. A part of her wanted to take that power to herself.

In truth, it was terrifying, the desire she felt for him. She was as blinded and besotted as Margaret and the rest. She had to get away.

She must find a priest, she thought. There was but one answer now. She could not go home; she could not live in such a manner; she could not go to Melanthe or Lancaster or Raymond. She had never been a devoted admirer of the clergy, the reproving deans and plump-fingered rectors who had come to dine on eels and venison at Savernake, but she could not turn now to anyone but the church.

They left Venice behind far across the lagoon, its domes and walls a black mass like a lion crouched upon the waters in the moonlight. The clouds towered up overhead, tumbled radiance, glowing at the edges with the silvery light. The boatman poled along a muddy bank, where there seemed to be naught but reeds and waterfowl making sleepy hoots in the darkness. Elayne said nothing. She let the pirate direct her. He meant them to travel by land; surely they would sojourn at some monastery—but then she wasn’t certain if a man ex-communicate from the church would be suffered to remain in a house of God. But somewhere, soon enough, she would find someone ordained, and tell him she was abducted, and throw herself on the mercy of the church.

The boatman bent to his pole, holding them against a low bank where reeds whispered in the night breeze. The Raven jumped onto the bank. Elayne stepped out, her leather boots sinking a little, water pooling around them.

A silent ostler brought two horses forward, their hooves making sucking noises in the soft mire. Elayne could only discern their size and outline—a stallion, she guessed, and a palfrey with a white blaze. The familiar smell and warmth of their big bodies permeated the damp air.

The pirate looked at her. He had changed into finer clothing, a dark tunic and white shoulder cape with long indigo dags. He wore a hat like a hunter’s, the folded point pulled down over his face, but she could see the line of his cheekbone; the shadowed curve of his mouth. Behind him, luminous clouds and sky glowed with midnight blue and silver brilliance. The light gave him form and substance, the graceful shape of her murderous angel of the dark. She hugged her arms around herself and turned, trying to give nothing of her thoughts away.

She had but a simple plan. Find a church, find a cleric. It seemed that it must be painted upon her forehead in burning letters. He stayed near her while the ostler threw saddlebags over the horses. She could feel his attention on her.

He had asked if she could ride. She could ride near anything, and had done it at Savernake, from the feral colts to the half-tamed breeding studs.

The ostler stood holding the smaller palfrey. The pirate reached for the stallion’s saddle and put his foot into the stirrup without hesitation, without even testing the animal’s girth. The big horse stood tense, head lifted, its eyes rolling white in the dimness.

Elayne paused, listening to the stallion’s uncertain huffs, a sound that proclaimed it was ready to stand but happy to bolt given the smallest pretext. In the moonlight it began to turn, spinning in a circle, the hoofbeats growing more rapid and uneven. Il Corvo, the terror of the Middle Sea, hopped on one foot as the horse circled faster. He dragged on the reins. The stallion stepped aside, throwing its head in the air, its hindquarters coiled for an explosion.

Too late, the ostler lunged for the animal’s bridle. Moonlight gleamed on the stallion’s haunches and shoulders as it reared. Only the pirate’s quick balance kept him from falling as he kicked free of the stirrup and landed on one leg, his dagged shoulder cape fanning out wildly. He bumped up against Elayne as he caught himself.

"Hang that stablemaster," he muttered. "One of his whores would be easier to mount."

Elayne chewed her lip. She moved back a little, reached down in the darkness, and pulled her back hem between her legs, knotting the silk shift up to her waist with a quick loop that she had made a thousand times. "I know something of horses," she said. "I think you alarm him."

"Is it so?" the pirate asked dryly. "We’re of one mind, then. He alarms me."

"Perhaps..." She took a step forward, then back, not wanting to appear overconfident. "I could try. If the man will hold him while I mount."

"And break your neck, my lady? Why would I allow that?"

"You’re anxious of him," she said, rather than declare the truth outright—that he was evidently nothing of a horseman. "He senses it. I don’t think he will be unruly with me."

He stood silent, looking at the horse. "You brought no other mount?" he asked the ostler.

"No, signor," the man said uneasily. "I wasn’t told to bring another. Two good horses, steady and fast, for a gentleman and a lady, I was told."

"Steady!" Il Corvo said. "Bah."

"He is not often disobedient, signor," the ostler muttered. 

Il Corvo snorted. "How long to bring another?" 

"In haste—I might be back by Matins, signor." 

The Raven made a sound of disgust.

Elayne gave a little shrug. "Let’s wait for a gentler mount, then, if it wounds your pride that I might do it better."

He blew air through his teeth. "Oh, I’m certain that you can ride him the better. Anyone could. God curse it. We cannot stay till dawn. If this evil creature harms you, I’ll see it in Hell."

 

* * *

 

She could have mounted from the ground, but she let the ostler help her. The horse stiffened under her, waiting for a reason to object. She gave him none, and after a moment the animal heaved a sigh and lowered its head.

In the dark the palfrey stood patiently as the pirate swung himself into the saddle. She could see the black stretches of the marsh and his silhouette clearly in the light of the great moon as it hung near to setting. The palfrey’s white blaze nodded as the horse champed its bit. Elayne suspected the pirate was beleaguering the animal’s reins for no good reason, but it bore his interference tolerantly. It appeared to be a good mount for a green rider. She hoped it was just such a sturdy slug, even though the ostler claimed it had some speed.

"This track will lead you to the canal-side, signor," the ostler said. "There’s a road along the bank."

The palfrey’s bit jingled as Il Corvo clucked to the animal. It broke into a sedate trot down the only path visible in the night. Her stallion followed willingly, a steady thump of hooves in the sandy muck.

Elayne had no notion of where they were or where they were going. She could see smooth, silvery expanses of water out across the flats, and the lumps and shapeless contours of vegetation beside the track. In some places she thought she discerned the mass of a hut or a weir, or even the towers of a distant town, but she could not be certain what they were. It seemed an empty place, given only to the night breeze and the water.

It was so bright under the full moon that she could see a tuft of downy white caught on the thumb of her glove. Nimue had barked and cried, scrabbling to climb over the railing as their boat had pulled away from the ship. Elayne had not even been able to say a real goodbye to the pup. Or to Margaret and her baby, or Matteo, or any of them. She had not dared.

She rolled the white puff of hair in her fingers, and then pushed it inside her glove. The sudden moisture in her eyes magnified the horizon for an instant. She caught a clear glimpse of a tower in the distance before she blinked and it became a blur again.

The path widened to a cart track, pale marks between the windswept reeds. A meandering canal gleamed between low banks. Just ahead, the palfrey paced kindly along, following the road. The horse was a true ambler; a fine smooth-gaited mount, the sort of horse that Sir Guy would have been proud to offer to Lady Melanthe for traveling.

Elayne did not intend to keep to an amble. Her heart beat harder as she realized she was gathering herself; the stallion responded immediately with a lifting of his back, coiling under her.

She gave a little false shriek, digging her heels into the animal’s barrel at the same time that she dragged back on the reins. He danced in protest. She begged silent pardon of the confused beast, driving him again, and again, still holding him back on taut reins until he twisted and reared in frustration.

Elayne made an effort to scream. It came out as a yelp, but she hauled the horse around, prodding him cruelly again as his forefeet hit the ground. He squealed in anger. She sat back as she felt him duck his head. His body rose under her, a buck and hard kick. She rode the jerking motion twice, then saw the track and the palfrey standing before her. She released the tight reins.

The stallion sprang forward. She managed a resemblance of a frightened shriek. It bucked again, aimed a kick at the palfrey as the other horse shied hard away, and began to run.

She leaned forward, letting the reins slip through her fingers. The horse moved powerfully under her. She could not see more than the faint double track between silhouettes of weeds, the black lumps of hedges that vanished from the corners of her eyes. The wind tugged at her hood as the stallion’s stride lengthened, his hooves pounding on solid ground now, his great body coursing forward in familiar rhythm.

Night air rushed past. She let the horse have full rein as it stretched into a true gallop. She felt suddenly freed, as if she might ride forever, as if the stallion were a magic beast that could fly across mountain and water to carry her home.

At the moment of that willful thought, the horse surged ahead. The gallop that had been free and wild suddenly transformed. The stallion began to drive in earnest, flinging its forelegs out into an enormous stride, ears pinned back, body flattened into the hammering stroke of a horse in full charge. She could hear the drum of hooves behind them—the palfrey bolting, too, and fast. Startlingly fast, for an ambler with a poor rider. In an instant of guilty exhilaration, she knew that the pirate must have fallen off as the stallion had plunged past them, freeing his horse to sprint at speed.

The palfrey came on with incredible swiftness even as the stallion’s gallop hurled her through the night. She spared a glance over her shoulder, wind and mane beating at her cheek, thinking to see the horse riderless against the bright horizon. With a heart-deep spurt of alarm, she realized it was not.

In the other cart track the palfrey pursued them like a horse out of Hell itself, the moonlight gleaming on its blaze as it drew even with the stallion’s hindquarters. Wind tore her hood from her head, sending her hair lashing around her face. The stallion increased its effort as the palfrey challenged it, pulling forward while the track curved and the bushes hurtled past, their branches whipping her leg. She could discern that someone rode it, but she could not believe it was a man who did not even know how to mount.

He was a wizard. The idea seized her. Sorcery it seemed, as the palfrey’s breath blew hot on her knee, as the lighter horse overtook them in spite of the stallion’s exertion. With sudden terror she urged the stallion to greater speed in its wild race into blackness, but the palfrey gave no ground. It drew even with her shoulders as she bent over the stallion’s neck.

Through blurry eyes she chanced a look aside and saw the pirate nearly abreast of her. In the darkness the palfrey’s reins flew free; its rider was a black shape, one hand gripped in the horse’s mane, half-standing and half-suspended from the saddle at a blood-chilling angle that seemed impossible to maintain as he reached toward her.

"Don’t do it!" she screamed, realizing that he meant to grab her rein. "Do not!" In an instant all thought of sorcery vanished. He had no concept of what would happen if he succeeded. He was riding on will and dexterity, barely holding to his seat.

The horses hurtled together down the uneven road. There was no stopping the palfrey—it was one of those beasts that lived to race, to stay ahead, and the stallion flung itself into the contest. Both horses were beyond control now; a tiny stumble would send them down in a bone-breaking tangle. She hid her face in the stinging mane, praying that they could see their way at such speed. When the pirate reached again for her rein, she struck out at his arm.

"Lunatic!" she cried. He grabbed her elbow, as if that could stop her. She felt him drag her down as he lost his balance. "Let go!" she screamed, jerking free by throwing her weight to the other side. The move sent the stallion into a wild collision with the palfrey; as she nearly lost her seat she felt the heavy jolt and rebound. The palfrey swerved out of the track and made a leap, clearing black reeds.

For an instant he held on. In the moonlight she saw the arch of the horse’s neck, saw the pirate grab mane with both hands, and then the animal hit the ground, throwing him free. In a flash of half-seen motion in the dark, he went down between them.

He was gone, left behind before she could even realize it. With no unwieldy weight on its back, the palfrey plunged full ahead, but in the universal manner of horses, it quickly seemed to realize that it only wanted to stay by the stallion instead of bolting past.

She could feel her mount flag. Elayne let it slow at its own will, paced exactly by the palfrey. The horses dropped to a trot. All of them, including Elayne, were breathing with explosive huffs. The stallion’s ribs expanded and contracted between her legs as it fell into a walk.

She took the palfrey’s reins. It halted willingly, a plain, gentle horse that reached over to nibble at a weed between pants, its mad race forgotten already. No trace of magic clung to it, no hint of the extraordinary speed that had overtaken the stallion’s lead. She could feel her mount’s exhaustion, but the palfrey seemed merely a little sweaty in the cool night air.

Elayne turned the animals, looking back down the cart track. She could see nothing but the black marshland under the moonlight. A deep shivering possessed her. For a moment she could not seem to find her breath at all. She pressed her hands down on the saddle-bow and bent her head, trying to overcome the tardy wave of faintness.

It was certain he would be injured, if not killed. He was a great fool, a murderer, and agile beyond measure, to have held on as long as he had. She had no sympathy for him. She wanted to escape him. Over her shoulder the steeple was clear now in the distance. She was free, with sanctuary within her grasp.

She moaned, twisting the stallion’s mane around her fingers. She closed her eyes, willing herself to turn and leave him there.

She opened them. "Damn you!" she whispered. "God curse you. What have you done to me?"

She drew a trembling breath and began to walk the horses slowly back along the track.

She found him at a clump of reeds, the sand around him gleaming with pale, deep scars from the horses’ hooves. He lay halfway on the cart track, his shoulder lifted as he supported himself on one elbow.

Elayne dismounted. He rolled onto his hands and knees, then stood. He swayed, not seeming to see that she was there, and went down to his knees.

She watched him as he lowered his head over the ground. She knew that sensation from many a hard fall—the wind knocked from her chest and a wave of sickness in her throat.

"Don’t try to rise," she said.

He lifted his head abruptly, saw her, and then leaned again over his hands splayed in the sand. His nose was bleeding. He gulped air. "You’re not—hurt," he said, between gasps.

"Not I. Are you?"

He did not reply. She waited. After a few moments he sat back on his heels. He was panting softly. "Not—skilled—with horses."

"Verily!" she snapped. "You near slayed us both."

He looked up at her then, his face a little angled, squinting, as if it were an effort to focus upon her. He tried to stand again, and failed. 

"Lie down," she said. "I believe your head was struck." Elayne dropped the horses’ reins to the ground and went to him. "Lie down, you great fool." 

He resisted her, taking a reeling step. He reached for the palfrey’s reins and leaned against the horse’s shoulder, his face in its mane. His hand groped for the stirrup. As Elayne watched, he sank slowly to the ground beside the palfrey’s leg.

She made a sound of vexation, leading the horse a few steps aside, where it was happy to graze on the marsh grass. The pirate was dead to awareness as she pulled off her cloak, but he came awake again, wincing, while she arranged it beneath his head.

Elayne pulled the laces of his cape open at the throat. "What did you think you were about?" she said angrily. "Did you think you could stop me?"

He closed his eyes and opened them. A lock of his loosened hair lay across his forehead, trailing over his bloodied nose and down his cheek. "Save you," he murmured.

"Save me!" she cried. "Depardeu. Save me!"

"Bolt," he said between his white teeth. "Vile...beast."

"He wasn’t bolting with me."

"He wasn’t?" he mumbled, in the meekest tone she had ever heard from him.

"No," she said fiercely.

"Flaming hell," he said, and closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

The pirate insisted upon traveling onward. He had managed to mount, hauling himself onto the long-suffering palfrey by the power of will alone. She didn’t think another man would have been able to stand at all. In the early light there was blood smeared all across his perfect nose and lips. His cape was full of dirt and his eyes were turning blackened. He had lost his headgear, and his dark hair tumbled loose and tangled down his back. He looked like an escaped prisoner from the Abyss.

As dawn came up behind them, a silvery haze obscured the horizon and the steeple tower. She led the palfrey at a slow pace along the bank of the canal. Often the pirate put his head down on the palfrey’s neck and lifted it again, looking about as if he didn’t fathom where he was. He asked her once why they were riding, and seemed to have forgotten that he had arranged for the horses himself.

She knew he had money and bread and papers in the stallion’s saddlebags; she’d searched them. She could have trotted away and left him now, with ease. The steeple had begun to resolve itself from the morning mist; she saw that it wasn’t a church at all, but a small tower with a broken windmill at the peak. Salt ponds gleamed flat and white under the rising sun.

She halted the horses, brushing back her loosened hair. Strain and lack of sleep dulled her mind. She had hoped for a religious house, or at least a village large enough to have a priest. Though when she envisioned her plea—that she had been abducted by a man who could hardly lift his head and speak sensibly—it now seemed a feeble claim.

She ought to leave him. The saltworks appeared long deserted, the thatched roofs of a cluster of huts falling to ruin at the base of the windmill.

"Let’s rest here," she said, turning in the saddle.

"No," the Raven said, his hand in the palfrey’s mane. "No. We press on."

She looked at him. "You’re in no case to ride." 

"I can ride," he said grimly.

With a flick, she threw the palfrey’s reins over its head to him and dismounted. "Ride, then. I must rest."

She led the stallion toward the windmill, guiding him between overgrown bushes. Little white castles of salt grew in the flats, like tiny fortresses scattered over the pale mud. The sluice carried only a trickle of water, its wooden gate crusted closed by glittering crystals of brine. She prodded with her toe at a lead salt pan lying overturned beside the sluice gate.

"We can’t tarry," the pirate said. "We must make our rendezvous."

She looked back. He was gazing toward the east, frowning vaguely at the distance. If he was to meet someone, she must leave him and find a refuge before it happened.

"Rendezvous?" she asked. "When is it?"

"I didn’t tell you?" He looked around and blinked. "We’re on the lagoon."

"You told me nothing," she said.

Under his slack reins, the palfrey took a step and reached down to lip at grass. "You brought us here," he said, with a faint insistence.

"No," she said. "You brought us. When is this meeting to be? Where?"

He wet his lips. He stared at her. Then he tilted back his head and laughed dizzily. "I cannot remember when." He shook his head in wonder. "I know not where!"

He looked about as if the answer might lie in the reeds or the misty horizon. In the early light he was apparition enough to inspire nightmares with his bruised visage. "I was to arrange for it..." He blew a sharp breath and groaned. "I recall nothing else."

"It must be the fall," she said. "Your head is shaken."

"My head is like to combust." He held his gloved palm over one eye and slid his fingers carefully down his bloodied face. "Christus. I fell?" He seemed uncertain even of that, making a grimacing frown at the palfrey. "From this animal?"

"Indeed. And you’ll fall from it again, do you not give yourself a moment’s succor."

"I don’t remember." He drew a deep breath. "But no matter. I can ride on."

Elayne opened a saddlebag, drew out a loaf of bread and a flagon, and sat down on the overturned salt pan. She didn’t know why she even lingered with him, but that she was a besotted fool. Even with his eye blackened and swollen, he looked like an angel that had fallen down some rock-strewn cliff to earth.

"Ride on to where?" she asked, breaking the loaf. There was enough provision in the bags that she could guess the intended destination was at least a day’s ride distant, but she made no mention of it.

He leaned forward and dismounted, standing with his hand on the palfrey’s shoulder for a moment to steady himself. Then he pulled off his gloves and unlaced the bags behind the stallion’s saddle. He searched through them, reading each paper one by one. When he had finished examining the contents of the saddlebags, he gave a curse and sat down heavily beside her, dusting and flicking at the mud-smeared hunter’s hat she had recovered from the ground.

"Nothing useful," he said. "I wouldn’t have written down such a thing."

"If you don’t know where you mean to go, then let them rest and eat." Elayne pulled the saddle free and loosed the stallion to graze. The pirate watched her as she released the palfrey also to his hobbles. She sat down again on the salt pan, the only accommodation available beyond the muddy ground.

"You know something of horses," he said.

She tore off a bite of bread, well aware of his dirty sleeve brushing her arm, his soft boots, his knee bent close to hers. "More than you, it would seem." She didn’t look at his face, uncertain if he would remember or recognize her design to flee from him in the dark.

"It appears docile enough," he said, watching the grazing horses. "Did it vault me off, the wretched animal?"

She let her hood fall forward, shielding her. "Yes, I think so. I didn’t see."

He tapped her leg with his knee. "You’re a poor liar, beloved. What happened in truth?"

Elayne bit her lip, glancing down at where his knee rested against the folds of her knotted skirt. She brushed down the hem of her green surcoat to cover several inches of bare stocking and her garter that showed above her boot. "The stallion ran away with me. You came after and tumbled from your mount when you reached to stop us."

"Is that so?" he said vaguely.

Elayne pushed back her mantle and ate a piece of dry bread. She offered him the rest of the loaf. Sitting so close beside him, he didn’t seem inhuman, not the devil’s spawn she had been certain he must be. He seemed a man, begrimed and bruised, hazy-eyed as he watched the horizon and broke plain bread with her. On his thigh there was a long streak of grass stain and mud. He touched his face again, running the pads of his fingers over his blackened eye and his swollen temple, frowning a little, as if to make certain of the pain.

She felt her soul slipping back down into his net once more.

"We must return to Venice, I think," he said, tearing bread for himself.

"No, you are banished," she said, suddenly afraid he would do some stupid and bold and foolish thing.

"Banished? From Venice?"

"Yes."

"God rot!" he said with a hiss. "What did I do?"

"Killed two men." She paused. "Or three."

He made a grunt, and then nodded. "The Riata spawn, I expect." He ate a piece of bread, wincing slightly as he chewed it. "Only banished? I must have bespoken myself well."

She gave him a hot look. "Oh, most ably!" she said in a bitter voice.

He stopped chewing and squinted at her through his straggling hair and blackened eye. "You’d have preferred otherwise?"

She tilted her face to the sky. A breeze touched her cheek, carrying the tang of the salt marsh, the musky whiff of the horses. "I don’t know what I prefer anymore," she said. "I hardly know who I am."

The windmill creaked, its ragged arms stirring as ripples fanned across the skim of water on the salt pond. She felt the warmth of his body, a few inches from hers, even through the weight of her mantle.

"The horse didn’t bolt, did it?" he said softly. "You were running from me."

He didn’t seem angered by it. He said it as if it were a simple statement, ever able to fathom her mind.

"What am I to do?" she said to the sky, to the soft morning clouds, holding her knees and rocking herself. "I can’t stay with you."

"What did you plan? A bishop? A magistrate?" He stood up unsteadily and walked a few feet away, turning his back to her. "Why didn’t you plead haven in Venice?"

She had not thought of it then. She had been too occupied with the brazen play between them, with the way he had looked at her as if they were locked together alone in the dark.

"Elena," he said, when the silence stretched, "I can’t be other than I am. I would not live out the year, and I have no wish to see Hell any sooner than I’m obliged to."

She made a little sound of anguish. "How can you speak of Hell so lightly?"

"Because I’m afraid of it," he said.

She wet her lips, gazing at his disheveled figure. He caught his balance as he turned, standing with his legs apart.

"I know that’s my fate," he said. "There’s not gold or mercy enough in Christendom to pay for what I’ve done in my life, and will do yet."

She folded her gloved hands together and pressed them to her mouth.

"But I’ve thought," he said, "if I could make a place in the world, if I could forge it well, and strong—strong beyond any hazard, beyond any enemies—if I could do that and leave a child of my own blood there..." He locked his fists behind his back and looked up at the horizon. "Even twisting in Hell, I’ll have that. I’ll have that much." He shrugged. "And perhaps it could be as you said—he wouldn’t have to be what I am. He might be a good man. He might even be taken up to Heaven when he dies."

Elayne lowered her hands. He smiled derisively, a harsh shadow in his battered face. The fleeting instant of wistfulness when he spoke of Heaven vanished, so that she wasn’t certain if she had heard it, or if he only meant to mock himself.

"Don’t the priests say that anyone might enter Heaven, if they repent and do penance?" Elayne said.

He shrugged, scanning the salt flats. "Doubtless. I place no dependence on what priests say; they contradict themselves once an hour."

As he turned, he stumbled a little. He recovered himself and stood swaying. Elayne rose. She hefted the palfrey’s saddle to her hip and carried it to the base of the windmill. 

"Rest here," she said, pulling the saddle inside, where the deserted brine baths were still whitened with fans and icicle-pendants of salt. "I’ll tie the horses between the walls.

The pirate stopped at the doorway, leaning hard against the jamb.  He took a deep, shaky breath.  As she made to pass him, he reached up and touched her shoulder. She paused.

He smiled at her, a drowsy, faraway smile. "Hell-cat," he said softly. "Will you stay with me in truth?"

Elayne drew a breath, looking up into his dark eyes. They were half-hidden by black lashes, encircled by purpling skin. His fine lips were swollen at one corner, his cheekbone scraped and red. It was not his beauty now that made desire and pain sink down through her.

"Yes," she lied. "I will stay."

 

* * *

 

The stallion hadn’t wandered far. She bridled it hurriedly and led it back to where its saddle lay, looking often over her shoulder at the empty doorway. The bags were still tied to the hind-bow; they held a purse of coins, enough to buy food, she hoped, if she couldn’t find a religious house soon. She would be leaving him with nothing but the bread and watered wine.

She heaved the saddle over the stallion’s back in one great effort and pulled up the girth. With a glance over her shoulder, to make certain again that the doorway was empty, she swung herself into the saddle.

As she gathered the reins, she remembered the tuft of Nimue’s white hair that she had saved. Carefully she drew off her glove, to make sure of the keepsake. It was there still, clinging to her palm beneath the ring. Elayne slipped the tuft into a safe corner of one saddlebag. She took a deep breath, frowning fiercely at the horizon. She would not think of Nimue and Margaret and Matteo and the others. She could not.

She started to pull on her glove, and paused. In the soft morning light the engraved ring on her hand gleamed.

With an effort, twisting and rotating it, she tried to remove it from her finger. It was tight about her joint, a painfully close fit over the knuckle. She spit into her hand and worked at it, whimpering in frustration. But she wanted to leave it with him; it didn’t belong to her; she didn’t want to abandon him injured and outlawed and utterly without resource. There was at least gold in the ring. With a painful rush of air through her teeth, she managed to work it off at last.

She hesitated, her finger throbbing from her efforts. She had left him as he was easing back against the saddle, propped up on the lambskin pad with his arm across his forehead. She held the ring in her palm, looking down at it. When she turned it in her hand, she saw for the first time that there were letters engraved on the inner curve as well as the outside. She tilted it to the light.

A vila mon Coeur, it said in French.

A vila mon Coeur. Gardi li mo.

She closed her eyes, curling her fingers tight around the ring, and bowed her head with a whimper of despair. Here is my heart. Guard it well.