We rode through the morning and stopped at midday to rest and eat. I hadn’t slept all night, my leg ached, and my head pounded. I dismounted and barely held back a wince, but I’d have rest once we got to the sea. I could press on until then.
Aban pushed himself off his horse and grimaced as he tried to walk out the soreness. He pulled at the neck of his hauberk, where it was no doubt chafing him, and wiped at the perspiration on his forehead.
Cecilia dismounted only a few paces from me. Despite the hours in the saddle, her stride seemed easy and light as she approached, leading her horse. “I wanted to thank you for saving my uncle.”
“Thank you for spotting the man with the crossbow. You’ve sharp eyes.” Her eyes were beautiful too, but I kept that observation to myself.
She rubbed her hand along her mare’s withers. “Sharp eyes are useful at sea.”
“Indeed. And in courtyards where assassins are trying to kill off members of a rescue party.” Despite the aches and the worry, I found myself smiling because Cecilia was a pleasant traveling companion.
Aban looked between us and scowled.
Cecilia’s eyebrows scrunched together, and her friendly expression faded. She switched from Italian to Castilian. “Why do you make such faces at your brother?”
Aban’s mouth tensed in irritation. “It is not proper for him to be so familiar with a woman.”
Her cheeks colored—something I could watch for hours—but the sting of Aban’s words made my cheeks burn too.
Cecilia hesitated, then spoke. “Surely there’s no harm in comradery when we are working together to rescue our friends. I was only thanking him for his help.”
Aban crossed his arms. “My brother’s past indiscretion with a woman ruined my life. I must stay watchful lest the past repeat itself.”
Cecilia’s eyes widened. My gut swirled with a mix of embarrassment and anger and remembered sorrow.
Gil slipped from his horse. He was the most cheerful person I had ever met, but that wasn’t the case today. No doubt his head pounded even more than mine did, and he had the added worry of an abducted wife. He glared at Aban. “I have spent significantly more time with your brother than you have, and I have never known him to be anything other than respectable and kind with women.”
“Good.” Aban’s face still showed the tension of a deep anger. “He must have changed.”
“You speak of Zubiya?” Gil asked. Part of me wanted to stop him. Memories of Zubiya were private and grief over her death still fresh. But maybe it was time for Aban to get his facts straight and for Cecilia to have the full story rather than the twisted version Aban had heard from my father.
“Yes.” Aban faced Gil with the same defiance he’d used on me.
“She kissed him. She loved him. And he cared for her enough to take the blame and spare her the punishment.”
“The scandal stained his family—it stained me.” Aban slapped his chest.
“And what would the punishment have been for her?” Gil asked.
“Women who violate such rules are whipped or enslaved in the brothels.” Aban gritted his teeth. “Where they belong, no doubt.”
Gil’s face showed rare anger in the set of his mouth and the tension in his jaw. “You think it’s justified that a woman be condemned to the most awful kind of slavery for kissing the man she hoped to marry?”
“I heard it was more than a kiss.” He looked to me with accusing eyes.
“Just a kiss,” I said.
Aban frowned. “She was promised to another.”
“Against her will.” Gil glared.
Aban floundered for a moment. “She was to follow the will of her family. Family is everything.”
“Family is everything,” Gil repeated. “You seem to remember that when you ask your brother to find a place for you to sleep and food for you to eat. But you forget it when you blame him for something that happened when you were only a child.”
“Gil,” I broke in. If he kept going, he and Aban might never forget the words they spoke now with too little sleep and too much ire. Gil was right, but I also couldn’t turn away my own flesh and blood. I wanted both my brothers to at least tolerate each other.
Gil shook his head. “No. Aban needs to hear this. He’s insulted my wife, and he’s insulted my best friend. Were his face not so similar to yours, I would have smashed my fist into it several times already. He may have suffered a little because of that kiss but not as much as she suffered being married to a man she didn’t love and not as much as you’ve suffered pining for her all these years. A little gratitude and a little forgiveness are in order from him.” Gil gave Aban a final look and stalked away.
Aban looked at the ground, then looked at me, then at the ground again. “That was not the way I heard the story.”
I still reeled with the force of the potent memory that had just been uprooted and argued over in front of Cecilia. “That version is the true one. I lived it. But I imagine it’s different from what Father or Uncle Tahir told you.”
“I need some time.” Aban glanced at me, then wandered off in the opposite direction Gil had gone.
Sebastie was tending to horses, as were some of Bertaldo’s men. The rest of the Venetians were napping or talking to Signor Bertaldo. That left Cecilia and me relatively alone.
She studied me for a moment, then spoke. “I confess I was reluctant to go to Thebes. I thought it would be boring, trying to track down people from a rumor that probably wasn’t true. Instead, it has been an experience filled with danger and drama I had not anticipated.”
I chuckled. It wasn’t funny, but I hadn’t slept in a long time, and the tension with Aban had frayed any semblance of calm.
“I do hope Aban comes to appreciate you soon. He is fortunate to have a brother who still lives. I would give anything to see mine again, to bring even one of them back to life.” Her expression had contained amusement only a moment ago, but now grief replaced the lightheartedness.
“Your uncle said they fell in battle.”
“Yes. The war against Genoa. It took my mother too. Not the battles, but food was scarce, and her health had been delicate even before that.” Cecilia bit her lip and blinked away what looked like a tear. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and inhaled deeply. “But that is life, I suppose. People we care for die or are forced to marry someone they don’t love.”
She might have been speaking of Zubiya. Or of herself.
“You won’t let it get to you, will you? All that your brother has said?” She was trying to comfort me, and I was struck by the kindness of her efforts. It might prove easy to ignore Aban’s resentment if I could focus instead on Cecilia’s thoughtfulness.
“I’ve grown accustomed to family being angry at me. That’s why I adopted a new family in Greece. It seems to have worked out much better than the one I was born into.”
“And yet you haven’t turned the brother of your birth away.”
I shook my head. “Not yet. But if he keeps it up, I might find a job for him in a city other than Thebes.”
She smiled, and that simple motion chased away most of the gloom and seemed to ease both the pounding in my head and the ache in my leg.
Aban appeared again on a nearby rise. “Someone’s coming.”
My first thought was that Eudocia had escaped. Gil had said she’d promised to leave with the men who took her; she might not have promised to stay with them. If anyone could slip away from an armed group of abductors, it was her. But one of the Venetian soldiers keeping watch from higher ground ran for his horse and grabbed his crossbow.
“What do you see, Aban?” I grabbed my crossbow, following the example of Bertaldo’s man.
“They’re on horseback.” Aban looked over his shoulder and ran back toward the group. “Wearing turbans.”
“How many?” I strung one end of my crossbow and wedged it against a rock to pull the string onto the end of the other limb.
“Twenty.”
“Do you know how to shoot a crossbow?” I grabbed a handful of bolts.
“Sebastie showed me once,” Aban said.
“Keep away from them, then. Stay with the supplies.” I glanced at Cecilia. “You too. Stay out of sight, because if they’re seeking slaves, you’ll fetch a higher price than any of the rest of us will.”
Color drained from her face, and she nodded. Bertaldo’s men had stripped the baggage from the pack horses so they could better rest, creating a small pile. Cecilia hid herself among the bags.
I ran to the top of the rise to get a better view and flattened myself against the ground so I’d be harder to hit.
Aban hadn’t been far off. The group numbered twenty-one. Their turbans and curved swords suggested they were Turks. Nearly everyone in the Duchy had hired Turks at one time or another: the Despot Theodore, Nerio Acioli, even the Navarrese. And before them, the Catalans had worked with and hired Turks. The group galloping toward us might be allied with or employed by any one of the Duchy’s factions, but just as likely, they were working for themselves, raiding across the countryside for slaves.
Gil joined me on the ground. His crossbow was cocked and ready to fire. “I will load if you will shoot, at least until they get closer.”
“Agreed.” Before his eyes were damaged, Gil’s talent with the sword had been greater than mine, but I’d always been the better shot. I could fire twice as quickly if he did the loading.
“I would have expected them to attack something easier than the group of us. We’ve eight armed men. Ten if you count Bertaldo and Aban. They outnumber us only two to one.” Gil handed me his loaded crossbow. “Don’t rabble like them usually prefer better odds?”
“If they’re rabble. There weren’t any Turks in the bathhouse, were there?” Maybe there was a connection between the men riding toward us and the men who had attacked Gil and Eudocia.
“Not by their dress. I didn’t have time or the lighting to examine the shade of their skin.”
The approaching gang probably had a different master, or no master at all other than greed. They were nearly within range. I aimed at one in the front. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance they’re going to stop charging toward us to avoid battle.”
Gil grunted. “You can see them better than I can, but I doubt it. If they wanted to talk, they’d come at a slower pace or raise a flag.”
They were close enough now. I shot one. Then I switched crossbows and shot another. I had to wait only a few moments before Gil had the first crossbow loaded again for me. Before I shot my third, Sebastie and one of the Venetians had taken down two others, but the Turks launched a dozen arrows at our group, hitting several of our horses, who turned mad with pain. None of us could spare the time to calm them.
Gil kept a crossbow—they were close enough for him to aim now. I let off another shot, and then they were so close that we stood and pulled out our swords. They had the advantage—they were on horses. One rode uphill right for me, and his blade flashed in the sunlight before it rammed into mine with the force of the man’s arm and his horse behind it. I blocked but was thrown to the ground in the process.
I stood in time to slit the hind legs of another Turk’s horse, then cut at a Turk who had jumped from his mount to attack Gil. He wore a mail hauberk, so I aimed for his exposed neck and sliced. The man collapsed before he could kill my friend. Gil slashed at another man, taking him down, and then nodded his thanks to me.
The Turks were spread out now. Sebastie dueled with two. A Venetian shot one with a crossbow. We’d killed or wounded half their number already, but we’d also taken a loss. One of Bertaldo’s men lay on the ground with an arrow sticking out of his chest. The remaining Turks seemed to focus on stealing the horses they hadn’t already shot.
Cecilia crawled toward the wounded Venetian and pressed a cloth over his injury. One of the Turks rode to her, jumped from his horse, and yanked her toward him. She screamed and struggled, but he punched her in the stomach, silencing her. While she was doubled over in pain, he forced her onto the horse, mounted behind her, and galloped away.
I ran for the nearest horse that was saddled and not injured. Gil ran with me but had to stop to fight one of the Turks. Two of the Venetian soldiers mounted and chased after the man who’d taken Cecilia. I climbed on the bay stallion Bertaldo had been riding and galloped after them. I had every confidence that Sebastie and Gil could handle the remaining enemy—the raiders fought with unremarkable skill, and we’d already culled their numbers—but if Cecilia disappeared into the lawless lands of the Duchy while a captive of the Turks, she might never emerge.
Another Turkish rider rode parallel to me. He aimed his arrow in my direction, but I ducked and wasn’t hit. That was a skill I did not possess—the ability to aim an arrow while riding a horse. The Turks were famous for it. I rode closer to him, because I might not be able to shoot while riding a horse, but I could slash and stab.
Our horses came almost even with each other. Dust dried my throat, and the thud of galloping hooves pounded in my ears. I gripped my sword in my right hand and swung at the man with all my might. His back arched as my sword cut into him, and he fell from the saddle. I urged my mount toward the man with Cecilia. His horse carried two, and the stallion I rode was powerful and obedient. With a little urging, we gained on them.
One of Bertaldo’s men rode next to another of the Turks. He slashed with his sword but didn’t unhorse his opponent. He tried again, hit, and the Turk fell backward, tumbling from the saddle. Before the Venetian could rebalance himself, an arrow pierced his shoulder.
I lowered myself against the back of my stallion, hunched forward as if I were in a race. And I was—a race against death, a race to rescue Cecilia before the Turks sold her into slavery. Her fair features made her a prize the Turks would do much to keep.
My stallion’s stride broke. I glanced at his hindquarters to see an arrow sticking from his rump. The wound wasn’t fatal, and to the horse’s credit, he kept galloping, though not as fast as before. The Turk with Cecilia and three of his comrades rode over the crest of a hill and disappeared beyond it. Another of the Turks followed, then one of the Venetians. I pushed the horse harder. “Just over that rise, then it will be downhill for a bit.”
The terrain followed my prediction. Once we crossed the top of the hill, the ground fell away in a gentle slope covered in grass and scrub. The horse carrying Cecilia slowed and joined a group of a dozen fresh Turkish pirates.
I cursed. Only a portion of the group had attacked us. I was woefully outnumbered. I tugged on the reins to slow the horse, but it was too late. The stallion reared up as a flight of arrows sailed into him. In my desperation to cling to the horse as he bucked and fell, I dropped my sword. Then I crashed into the dirt beside the dying, thrashing animal.
A group of the reserve Turks galloped toward me. I struggled to my feet and ran for my sword. I had it by the time the first Turk reached me. He swung his blade at me, and I caught it with my steel and pulled my attacker off balance. His horse moved quickly, but I swung around and cut the animal across the hamstring before he was past. Man and horse crashed to the ground.
Another Turk was upon me in the next moment. He swung, and I ducked, but he rode past before I could do anything more. The next Turk leapt from his saddle onto me. His momentum carried us both to the dust, and I struggled to keep my weapon in hand. He was too close for my longsword. I grabbed the knife from my belt and shoved it into his side.
The thunder of approaching hooves made the ground vibrate. I untangled myself from the dying Turk and stood to meet the next threat.
Something struck the back of my head.
The world flashed white.
Then it turned black.