Aban and I dumped the bodies in a dark alley in another part of the Cadmea, then cleaned and returned the cart. We entered the bathhouse through the back way. From what I could see in the dim lighting, Michali and Antonina had done their work well. The bathhouse looked normal, with neither bloodstains nor discarded weapons visible to hint at what had happened.
When we reached the anteroom, Sebastie was speaking Euskara, the language of the Basques, in soft, soothing tones. Gil squinted up at him. Relief washed over me. Gil wasn’t going to die, not tonight. When I got closer, Gil turned his head toward me. Torchlight reflected off the earring in his left ear and shone on a mouth pulled tight with worry and pain.
“I’ve got to find her,” he whispered in Castilian. He rolled to his side and let his legs pull him into a sitting position.
“Go slow,” Sebastie said.
Gil ignored his uncle’s advice. Despite his pinched and pale face, he tried to stand. His legs wobbled and collapsed, and he fell to the floor.
I knelt on the tile next to him. He held his head and squeezed his eyes shut and looked in danger of vomiting.
“Maybe you should lie down a little longer,” I suggested.
“The longer I rest, the farther away they take her and the harder it will be to save her.” I’d heard that type of desperation in Gil’s voice before, once, when Eudocia had been bleeding and unconscious and a group of Catalans had been chasing us. I’d known he was in love with her before that day, but until I’d seen his devastation as she’d bled, I hadn’t realized how deeply.
“First tell us what happened. Then we’ll find her. I’ll be with you, and I promise I will never give up searching for her.”
Gil gave a small nod and stretched out on the tile floor. Getting up to the cushioned bench must have been more than he could manage. “We were about to close up. Eudocia had just finished hanging the last batch of towels out, and I was going through the ledger. Twelve men came in. Said they wished to hire us for a task. I told them we weren’t for hire, and they attacked. I thought if I could stand in the doorway of the apodyterium, they’d only be able to come at me one or two at a time, so I fought there for a while. Then eight more came from the back—including the man from this morning. He must have led them through the courtyard. I slew one, and Eudocia took up his sword. She killed one of them.”
Gil paused, and let the significance sink in. Eudocia had never killed anyone before. Gil, Sebastie, and I all had. We’d been soldiers. We’d fought in battles. But she never had, until she’d had to fight for her husband.
“I failed her.” Gil’s voice sounded haunted. “I couldn’t protect her.”
“There were twenty of them and only two of you.”
“She could have gotten away. I told her to run. Instead, she picked up that sword.” He swallowed back emotion. “It was hard for me to see. The tepidarium lets in more moonlight, so we went there. One of the men almost struck me down. His blade cut my head, and then I could see even less for all the blood. He was their leader. He was going to beat me. Not in the daylight, maybe, but in the darkness, I couldn’t keep up with him. He almost had me, and then Eudocia cried for him to stop. She said she would go with him if he would spare me. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“Do you remember how you got the bump on the back of your head?” Sebastie asked.
“No.”
“It’s probably from when they knocked you out.” Sebastie grabbed one of the cushions from the bench and slid it under Gil’s head.
Gil’s version of the events explained what we’d seen in the bathhouse. And it explained why Eudocia hadn’t been bound when she’d left the city with the men who had abducted her. She’d thought her cooperation would save Gil, and it had. But at such a cost.
“We examined the bodies we found,” I said. “Couldn’t tell much about them. Longswords, so from the west, we think, rather than Greece. But they could be from anywhere in Italy or beyond. What language did they speak?”
“Only one spoke. Their leader. He spoke to us in Greek, but it was not native to his tongue. He might have been from anywhere. With his men, he used signals.”
“Michali saw Eudocia leave with the men by the Neistai Gate. One of the Venetians from earlier was there too. Did you see him here when they came?”
Gil frowned. “No. But I might not have recognized him if he hung back. Was it Bertaldo or Querini?”
“Michali didn’t say. But I think we had better find out what the other one knows before we go rescue your wife. Where were they staying?”
* * *
Gil couldn’t yet stand without a rush of pain and dizziness that brought him right back to the ground, so I left Aban to tend him and took Sebastie to the neighborhood that Gil and Eudocia had tracked the Venetians to the day before. Dawn still lay some distance ahead of us, but waiting until more polite hours wasn’t an option.
“This looks like the place he described.” Sebastie nodded to a large home set back from the street.
The gate was shut, but it yielded under my hands when I applied a little pressure. It should have been locked for the night, but the discrepancy was soon explained. A pair of boots stuck out from beneath a bush. Sebastie and I pulled free a watchman trussed with ropes and sporting a large bump on the back of his head. Fortunately, he revived more quickly than Gil had.
Fear crossed his face as he looked between us. I sometimes had that effect on people, but I didn’t think the darkness of my skin was the problem. Any man with a sword would have made him nervous.
“We mean you no harm,” I assured him. “Tell us what happened.”
He nodded, then winced at the movement. “Someone knocked on the gate. I cracked it open to see who was there, and they pushed me into the wall.”
“How many?”
The man held his head and groaned. “Twelve, I think.”
Twelve. Twenty had gone to the bathhouse, and three had died there. That would have left five to guard Eudocia or to see to other matters, if they’d gone to the bathhouse first.
“They hit me over the head, and I don’t remember anything after that.”
I finished untying his legs. “Where were the Venetian guests?”
The watchman pointed. The home stretched along three sides of a central paved court, with two levels of rooms. Sebastie and I rushed through the courtyard and up the steps to the upper portion along the northern side. The first room we barged into showed chaos. An upended bench made a diagonal line across an overturned rug, clothing was scattered around the floor, and an extinguished candle lay in its holder on its side.
A man of noble bearing came into the room behind us. He’d probably been summoned by the watchman. He wore only a long tunic, leaving his bare legs exposed. “Where is Signor Querini?” He spoke Italian.
“We don’t know,” I answered in the same tongue. “Is Signor Bertaldo also missing?”
The man walked from the room, and we followed him to the next door. He knocked firmly. “Giacomo?” When there was no answer, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. This room hadn’t been ransacked. The bedding was all on the bed—though someone had slept in it. The cupboards and trunks were all closed, and any contents were out of sight.
The man, whom I assumed was the owner of the home, pushed aside a thick curtain and stepped into an adjoining chamber. This room, too, was empty and tidy. A comb and jewelry lay on a table beside several small cloths and a jar of mastic, making me think this was where Cecilia had been sleeping.
One of the men might have slipped past Michali’s eyes, if whoever had taken Eudocia had taken both Bertaldo and Querini, but he would have noticed another woman. Cecilia hadn’t been taken out of Thebes with the others. So where was she?
While the Venetian host looked around in shock, Sebastie motioned me toward the courtyard. I followed him. Eventually, the man would want to know who we were and why we were looking for his guests, and we didn’t want to be blamed for their disappearance.
If we couldn’t find the Venetians to ask what they knew, we’d have to leave Thebes anyway and hope we could somehow find Eudocia even without the information we needed. We’d have to wait until daylight. We’d never track them in the dark. The night still lay in its third watch, so we had a few hours to gather our equipment and rest.
I fisted my hands, then forced them to relax. “It’s been a long time since I felt this helpless.”
Sebastie grunted, his sound a perfect echo of my feelings. “And your leg is bothering you.”
It was, but I hadn’t said anything about it. “How did you know?”
“You’re limping. You did all the time for a few years. Now you only limp when you’ve overdone it.”
“Can’t be helped.” I tried to keep my steps steady, but forcing it made the gait feel unnatural. I would pay for it even more later—the overexertion—but the alternative of sitting things out wasn’t acceptable.
We passed a church. The main entrance was bolted, as expected for the hour, but a small door on the side spilled faint candlelight onto the ground outside, suggesting that the church was not empty. My leg would be glad for a break, and our search would benefit from divine assistance.
“Let’s stop and pray. Just for a bit,” I said. “We’ve time before the sun’s up, and Gil will be better for more of a rest.”
Sebastie nodded.
I’d been in quiet churches before, but never one so dark and silent. A single candle burned near a crucifix, but no forms were nearby. I pulled the door closed and looked into the shadows at the edges of the nave. Who had lit the candle?
We left our weapons by the door, approached the altar, and knelt to pray in front of it.
A hinge squealed loudly off to the side of us.
I jumped back to my feet and ran toward the door that had just opened. A person slipped out, a mere shadow in the candlelight, and began running. I took off in pursuit. Despite the ache in my leg, it didn’t take me long to catch the suspect. I guessed who it was and grabbed her arm none too gently before pulling Cecilia Bertaldo to a stop and turning her to face me.