Cecilia pulled back her hood. Her gray eyes had an extra depth to them in the candlelight, and her smile was hesitant but so beautiful that my chest felt constricted.
“I feared I would never see you again,” she whispered.
I glanced around. The other worshippers were unlikely to hear us if I kept my voice down. “Had things gone according to your uncle’s plan, that would be the case.”
Her eyes turned to the floor. “Can we speak? Somewhere more private?”
I got to my feet. My leg was cramping in pain again—I should have asked Gil to work on it before he and Eudocia had disappeared. Now it would have to wait until morning. Cecilia led the way, and I followed out onto the road.
“I didn’t know what he was planning when he sent me to the Sea Maiden.” Cecilia wrung her hands. “It wasn’t until after we put to sea that I pieced together how Querini was on board but you and your friends weren’t. I’m ashamed of what he did, but I’m so relieved to see you. I was afraid the Catalans would lock you up.”
“They did lock us up. Your uncle’s men gave Sebastie a mortal wound, and then the Catalans meant to kill the rest of us—me, Aban, Gil, and Eudocia.”
“Did you all escape?”
I softened. Her concern seemed genuine, but maybe that was something she’d learned as a spy—how to manipulate people and portray emotions that weren’t really felt. “Sebastie didn’t. The rest of us did, but now the Catalans have even more of a reason to wish us ill.”
Her head tilted with understanding. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To see that the Catalans lose power completely so they can no longer threaten you.”
I nodded.
“And no other reason?” Her teeth bit into her lower lip.
I wasn’t sure how much I trusted Cecilia, but I was still drawn to her. That pull, that connection, had strength enough for me to tell her more. “Eudocia thought you might head to Neopatras. We never got to say a proper goodbye.”
Her mouth relaxed, and so did her hands. “I’m here now. Is that what you want? To tell me goodbye?”
“Are you still betrothed to Signor Querini?” I managed to say his name without disgust, but only barely.
She looked away. “We haven’t spoken of it since Vostitza. The assumption is still there.”
“And is that what you want?”
“I’m not sure what I want.” Her left hand clasped her right one again, rubbing and squeezing and tugging. “But I had hoped for your forgiveness, for a little more warmth. I should be getting back.” She turned and took long strides away from me.
I hesitated but only for a moment. “Cecilia?” I hurried to catch up to her. “Where are you going? Back to the acropolis?”
“Not until morning. The gates are closed.”
“If you’re staying in the acropolis, why are you in the lower town? Were you sent here to spy?”
She stopped, frozen.
I walked around until I could see her face. I saw fear there . . . and shame. I sighed. “I’m not going to haul you to the captain over the Florentine troops, even though he’s an old friend and would probably be merciful. But I want to know why you never told me. We spoke for days, all about everything. Except what the Sea Maiden really traded in. Except what you and your father and your uncle and your betrothed are so expert in.”
Her chest rose and fell with deep inhalations. “You’re not going to turn me in?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I think you can figure that out for yourself, but none of my feelings for you matter if I can’t trust you.”
Her shoulders fell, and she pulled her cloak more tightly around herself. I’d hurt her. Guilt nibbled at me, but her secrets had hurt me—had contributed to Sebastie’s death and nearly led to execution for me and my friends.
Her voice came as a low whisper. “Would you listen if I tried to explain?”
“I will always listen to you.” I reached out a hand, and she took it. Her grip was soft and warm and made me want to pull her closer. Wisdom called for caution, but something else whispered love. “I’m staying nearby,” I told her. “We can go there. I think everyone else is asleep.”
She nodded and kept pace with me. We’d spent a lot of time walking together, but this was different. We weren’t chained. We had a choice. But beyond the next step and the next conversation, everything remained uncertain.
The courtyard was empty and quiet when we arrived. I led her into the hall and lit the three oil lamps I could find. She sat on one side of the table, and I sat on the other. Part of me wanted to sit closer to her, but I also wanted to see her face as she spoke, even though I didn’t trust myself to read her emotions correctly.
“Maybe you should start by telling me why you’re down here in the town instead of up in the acropolis.”
Her mouth tightened with a hint of guilt. “The guards at the gates aren’t letting men in, at least not men who aren’t clearly peasants. Women aren’t scrutinized as much, so I said I would come and look.”
“Your uncle agreed to that?” He’d always seemed protective before. Sending his niece on an espionage mission, alone, seemed out of character.
“Signor Querini thought it was a good idea. My uncle might not listen to me, but he listens to him. We didn’t think anyone in town would recognize my face.”
Had we not escaped from the Catalans, that would no doubt have been true. “What are you looking for?”
“Signs of preparation for an attack. Or cannon. Zavall says we can hold out against anything except cannon.”
I looked away. I ought to turn her in for spying, but she’d come with me voluntarily. The Navarrese Company might have taken Nerio Acioli after granting him safe passage for negotiations, but I wouldn’t do the same to Cecilia.
“I didn’t want to end up on the opposite side of this war from you.” Sorrow laced each of her softly spoken words.
“Will you tell me why Venice aligned with the Catalans? They had an agreement with the Navarrese, so I don’t understand.”
“Querini doesn’t always speak for Venice, but he doesn’t want the Florentines to grow more powerful. The Catalans are against the Florentines, so . . .”
“So you have a common enemy.”
She nodded. “And there’s worry about the Turks. The Catalans know these lands—they can defend them better than Nerio Acioli, or, at least, that is what Signor Querini believes. His alliance with the Catalans isn’t official Venetian policy, but Querini convinced my uncle that this is the best of our options.”
“And you? What do you believe?”
“Just that I don’t want to fight against you.”
“The Catalans want me dead. I can’t change sides, not even if I wanted to.”
She bit at her bottom lip again. “Then that leaves the choice to me, doesn’t it?”
She could fight against me, or she could fight against the interests of her people. I didn’t envy her choice. Her stomach made a gurgling noise, and her cheeks flushed.
“When was the last time you ate?” I asked her.
“About midday.”
I stood and grabbed one of the lamps. “I haven’t had much of a chance to look around the townhome. I’ve been told that the previous owner is up in the acropolis, but he only left recently. We can probably find something. Come.”
Together we explored the cupboards—empty, save for some crockery—and the storerooms. We found stores of grain and olive oil, wine, and then, finally, olives and dried fish.
“Aren’t you eating?” she asked when I placed a shallow serving dish in front of her and poured her a glass of wine.
“I already ate.”
“Well, if you change your mind, these go down easier then raw mussels do.”
I felt myself smiling. I could be happy sitting across the table from Cecilia day after day, sharing the same old jokes. A quiet life wasn’t a bad life, not when the routine included people I cared about. But it had to include people I trusted.
When she finished eating, I asked another question. I had to find out if she could ever be included among the people I trusted at the center of my life. “When did you become a spy?”
She ran her hand along the edge of the ceramic dish. “After the war, when my mother died and my father took me aboard the Sea Maiden. I don’t know if you can understand what it was like. We were almost defeated. The Genoese wouldn’t negotiate—they wanted to take Venice. They’d already beheaded some of the prisoners. We had no reason to think they’d spare the rest of us. It would be death or the slave markets. We almost lost our city and our freedom.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. The tide turned. And the Sea Maiden helped turn it. My father and I—we didn’t ever want that to happen again. To lose so many of those we loved and to nearly lose our home.”
“You were only a girl.”
“Few people suspect a girl.” She’d been staring at her hands, but she looked up to meet my gaze. “I didn’t do anything evil. At first, I just watched and studied and listened and took messages and payments to the people my father worked with and collected information from them.”
“Your father sent a girl around as courier? Couldn’t you have been hurt?”
“He was with me most of the time, the first few years. He or one of his most trusted men, like Cornario. Usually, we just went to the market and delivered or collected something from one of our contacts.”
I nodded. “Did your father do that type of thing before the war? Before you joined him?”
“Yes, but he did more after the war. He didn’t ever want Venice to be so threatened again.”
“And your uncle?”
Her beautiful lips pulled into a frown. “He insisted on sending me back to Venice. Some of the contacts were willing to work with him. He looks like my father, so it was easy for him to convince them to trust him in my father’s stead. But some stopped collecting information for us.”
“And how does Querini fit in? He worked with your father?”
Cecilia nodded. “My father and others. Papa sent most of his information to him. Querini thought that if we married, I could get some of our old sources to trust us again, among other things. The marriage wouldn’t just be good for my family. It would help keep Venice safe.”
I leaned back a bit. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized the full extent of the pressure she felt to marry Querini. Her uncle had placed not only the wellbeing of the family on her shoulders but also the security of her republic. “Did you know the Turkish pirates who attacked us were specifically looking for members of the Sea Maiden’s crew? They knew your uncle’s name, and Querini’s, and they knew your father was once captain.”
She looked down. “I suspected.”
“Even the Ottoman sultan has heard of the Sea Maiden. He promised the pirates a reward if they captured all the secret diagrams and maps the Sea Maiden has gathered about the cities and fortresses in Greece.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “How do you know that?”
“They attacked the ship I was on when we crossed the gulf two days ago. When the battle was over, we questioned the prisoners.”
“Something one of the men said when they captured me made me think they knew the Sea Maiden had more than goods for trade aboard,” she whispered. “I hadn’t any idea that they knew details or that the sultan had learned of it. That changes things.”
I leaned across the table and put my hand over hers. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before? When we were running from the Turks, I thought they would merely pursue us as escaped prisoners meant for the slave markets—I had no idea the Sea Maiden meant anything to them beyond plunder. And after we escaped, knowing that the Turks were after the Sea Maiden—after Querini—that might have helped us find Eudocia.”
She blinked away tears. “I wanted to tell you more, but I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“Of what might happen to you. Five years ago, I said too much to one of the men we worked with in Constantinople. I let slip that one of the silk merchants was also a friend of Venice. The next time we sailed to Constantinople, they were both dead. We never figured out if the Genoese or the Greeks were responsible, or someone else. But it was my fault. One might have died anyway, but because I said too much, they both died. I learned then not to say anything that wasn’t necessary, not to anyone.”
“You didn’t trust me?”
“Not at first. You live in a city controlled by Nerio Acioli, and he is not currently a friend to Venice. Sharing information has consequences, and I can’t always predict whether those consequences will be good or bad. I didn’t want someone to hurt you or one of the Sea Maiden’s contacts. Silence seemed safer.”
“Do you trust me now?” I asked.
“Do you trust me?”
Now it was my turn to look away. “I want to trust you.” One of the lamps sputtered out, and the silence grew long and heavy. “You could stay,” I whispered. “You don’t have to go back to the acropolis and to your uncle and to your betrothed. You could stay here until the battle is over, and then you could come to Thebes with me.”
“But if you don’t trust me, whatever we’ve felt for each other isn’t enough.” Sadness seeped into her expression, but her hands gripped mine.
I would trust her if she chose me over Venice and Querini, but that wasn’t the right thing to say. “All my reservation would disappear with a little bit of time. If you were to stay . . .”
“Venice needs me.”
“Maybe I need you too.” The thought of leaving Neopatras without her was bitter. I’d survived heartache and hurt before, but I wasn’t sure I could survive again, not without being devastated.
She pulled one of her hands away to wipe at a tear. “I will think on it. I’m not expected back until the gates open in the morning.”
Those weren’t the words I longed to hear, but they weren’t the words I dreaded either. “You can stay the night here in the townhome. I’ll give you my room, and I’ll sleep in the hall. Maybe in the morning, things will seem less muddled.” I stood and walked around the table. “I’ll show you where you can sleep.”
I took both lit lamps and led her up the short flight of stairs and past Aban’s room to the one I’d been assigned. I handed one of the lamps to her so she wouldn’t be left in darkness. Our hands touched, and her reaction to the brush of skin gave me hope. Her blush was visible even in the lamp glow.
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
The soft flickers of light heightened her beauty. My fingers found their way to her right cheek, and her eyes closed for longer than a blink. Her lips curved into a smile and parted. I leaned closer, slowly, inhaling her perfume. Before I could kiss her, she placed a finger over my mouth. Her touch sent a flame all the way into my chest.
“I . . . I have a lot to think about, and this will make everything more complicated.”
“Maybe it will make everything simpler.”
Her hand fell from my face to my chest. “Everything I’ve told you is true, Rasheed, but there are still things I can’t say. Maybe with time, we could . . . but we don’t have time.”
I put my hand over hers, gently holding it against my heart. I wanted whatever time was needed to earn her complete trust because I wanted to know all her secrets. “Venice has been making its case for your loyalty since you were born. It doesn’t seem fair that you won’t let me make my case fully, especially if time is short.”
She looked away. “It already hurts to think that we might not be together.”
I brushed my fingers along her cheek again, guiding her gaze back to me. “Which would you regret more? A kiss? Or never knowing?” I ran my thumb softly across her lips, and it took all my willpower not to follow with my mouth.
Her warm breath caressed my thumb, but she didn’t answer. I was only asking for a kiss, but that had led to pain before. I pulled my hand away slowly. Maybe Cecilia was right to hesitate. Zubiya and I hadn’t thought it through, and it had caused lasting hurt. I stepped back, completely unsatisfied but respecting her answer, or lack thereof.
“Good night, Cecilia. Being chained up next to you is one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Her eyes studied my face. “What of the woman you left your family for?”
“I loved her as a boy can love a girl. I love you as a man can love a woman.”
She said nothing. I took that as my dismissal and headed for the hall. When I reached the first step, her whisper called after me. “Rasheed?”
I paused and turned.
She set her lamp on the floor of the walkway and stepped toward me. One of her hands slid onto my shoulder, and the scent of myrrh brushed my nose. “I want to know what it feels like to kiss someone who loves me.” The hand on my shoulder traveled to the back of my neck, and her other hand slid along my jaw. She stood on her toes and pressed her mouth into mine.
Not a day had gone by since we’d escaped from the Turks that I hadn’t imagined kissing Cecilia. The reality was more intense, more breathtaking than any of my daydreams. Her lips were like poetry, soft and warm and alive. I still held a lamp, but I used my free arm to pull her into me. I didn’t ever want to let her go. I loved her. The way she kissed me had to mean she felt the same.
I felt her quiver, so I relaxed the arm that held her. “You’re trembling. Did I do something wrong?”
Her lips pulled into a contented smile, and when I moved my hand to her neck, I could feel her pulse pounding the same way mine was. Her voice was a breathy whisper. “No, it was perfect.” Her hand moved over my chest again. “You made a very convincing case.”
“Does that mean you’ll stay?”
She didn’t answer. She caught my mouth again, and everything around us seemed to melt away with that second kiss. Nothing else mattered in that moment except the woman I held in my arms. We were meant to be together—I could feel that truth in the depths of my soul.
When we were both breathless, she slowly pulled away. “Good night, Rasheed,” she whispered.
I stood there watching until she went alone into my chamber.