Gil’s humming woke me the next morning. He stopped when I sat up from the cushion where I’d been sleeping.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you, or I would have been quieter.” He stacked a pile of wood next to the hearth. “Why are you sleeping in here?”
“I gave Cecilia my room.”
“She’s here?”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and pulled my clothes on. “I went to pray, and she happened to be at the church. We talked for a while.”
Gil sat on the bench right in front of me. “Was it a good talk?”
I nodded and couldn’t hold back the grin that formed when I remembered the way we’d parted.
“Ah.” Gil smirked. “Then today we ought to get the two of you married, then you can join her in your bedchamber and I won’t accidently wake you when I try to start a fire tomorrow morning.”
I chuckled as Gil went to work at the hearth. I wouldn’t object to his plans, but I wasn’t sure Cecilia was ready. She’d spoken of things to ponder. I hoped she’d come down on the side of staying more than the night. Venice would call to her, but she could help Venice from Thebes. If needed, I would move to Negroponte or Crete or somewhere else with a Venetian influence if it would mean I could have her in my life permanently.
Eudocia entered the room. “Good morning.” She gave me a nod and sat next to Gil, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He laid his hand over hers. “There’s good news. Rasheed and Cecilia are going to get married today.”
I smiled and shook my head. “That’s hardly been decided yet.”
“Go up and ask her,” Gil suggested.
Eudocia’s face pulled with confusion. “Cecilia is here?”
“I ran into her at the church,” I said. “She was thinking things over, and anyway, I let her sleep in my bedchamber for the night.”
Eudocia still seemed surprised. “I just walked past your bedchamber. The door was open, and no one was inside.”
“What?” I stood and left the room, running up the stairs. As I passed the first door, it opened to reveal Aban.
“What’s going on?” he asked as I rushed past him.
I stopped in the open doorway. Eudocia was right. The chamber was empty. I slowly walked inside. The bed either hadn’t been slept in, or she’d made it up neatly. I sat there and pulled up the blanket, catching the slightest hint of her exotic perfume.
She’d left me, and this time, there had been no subterfuge by her uncle to blame. It had been her choice, and she’d sided with Venice, even after I’d kissed her, even after I’d told her I loved her. The pain in my chest was so strong it made it hard to breathe. It was worse than the physical pain I’d come to live with. Much worse.
A folded paper lay underneath an inkwell on the room’s small table. My hands trembled as I picked it up and unfolded it. I expected a letter explaining why she had left—and I would probably have to ask Eudocia or Gil for the translation. Instead, I opened a set of detailed drawings of the Neopatras acropolis. A large one showed the walls and all the buildings within. Another gave meticulous information about the gatehouse. A third showed the structures around the keep, with annotations.
Aban, Gil, and Eudocia stood in the doorway. “What did she leave you?” Aban asked.
“Do you remember how that Turk we interrogated said he was looking for the Sea Maiden because they had documents detailing the weaknesses of all the nearby fortresses? Information that an invading army was willing to kill for and a sultan was willing to pay excessively for?”
All three nodded.
I tossed the papers on the bed. “It seems Cecilia was the one who made all those documents.”
They stepped closer. Eudocia picked up the sketch of the gatehouse.
“She told you?” Gil asked.
“No.” I put my hands on either side of my head and tried to calm all the pounding, swirling emotions. Once again, she’d kept a secret from me—and I’d trusted her, again. I was a fool.
“Are you sure she drew them?” Eudocia asked. “She might have had them from someone else and left them for you.”
I walked to a shelf and lifted the papers. “There were five sheets of paper on this shelf when Stefano brought us to the townhome. Now there are two.”
Eudocia handed the annotated sheet to Gil. “Can you read this? It’s probably Italian—the characters are Latin.”
Gil pulled his spectacles from a pouch on his belt and balanced them on his nose. He walked to the window and held the paper to the light. He read Castilian and Greek, not Italian, but he muddled through the sounds. “She lists the times the guards change shifts. There’s a postern gate here.” He pointed it out on the paper. “And she says it will be unlocked at the end of the third watch tonight.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Why would she tell us how to get into the acropolis and then leave?” Her uncle and betrothed were clearly working with the Catalans. I’d thought she might remain neutral because of me. But she’d left me—that had to mean she’d chosen the other side.
“She could be luring us into a trap.” Eudocia’s voice was hesitant, as if she didn’t want to hurt my feelings.
If that were the case, Cecilia had played it well. I’d been convinced she cared for me. I gritted my teeth, hating how easily she’d manipulated me. Maybe it hadn’t been a coincidence that she had happened to enter the church while I’d been praying. She might have sought me out, knowing I was a gullible, lovesick idiot.
The others studied the papers Cecilia had left.
“The detail here is incredible.” Gil studied one sheet, then another. “If it’s true, then we could take control of the gatehouse with a dozen men.”
Eudocia cleared her throat.
“Men and women,” Gil corrected himself. He smiled at his wife, then turned his attention to me. “Can we trust her?”
I thought through everything she’d told me the night before. I replayed our first kiss in my mind—with my back turned to my friends because I didn’t know what expressions might cross my face while reliving that memory. Then I looked at the pages she’d left behind for me to find. She was so very talented. I’d noticed how observant she was, but I’d never guessed what she’d turned those abilities to. I glanced at the bed she’d abandoned before I’d awakened, no doubt in time to leave the city and return to the acropolis as soon as the gates had opened at dawn.
I gave my friends my honest answer. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Micer asked the same question Gil had. “Can we trust the woman who made these?”
“I’m not sure.” I hated not knowing if she’d lied, not knowing if she cared for me, not understanding her plan. “I have a hard time believing she would intentionally draw me into a trap.” Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it, because if she did mean me harm and I was in love with her, I was the greatest fool who had ever walked the earth. Or she was among the best spies in the Mediterranean—and given the detail in her drawings, that idea didn’t seem so far-fetched. I sighed. “If she is really on our side, I don’t know why she left without saying anything to any of us.”
Micer studied the diagram of the gatehouse. “If this is right, we could cut off reinforcements here and here.” He pointed to the approaches leading to the gatehouse. “It wouldn’t take many men to hold off anyone coming from the barracks to stop an attack.” Micer tapped the massive gatehouse structure. Each end was guarded by a portcullis and a thick gate reinforced with metal bands. An invading force trapped between the two gates could be slaughtered—but not if the gatehouse was controlled by a friendly assault party. “Then someone lifts the outer portcullis, and the main army comes through, then the inner portcullis and gate are opened, and we rush inside and take the rest of the acropolis. Except maybe for the keep, but we can bottle them up there for however long it takes them to surrender. They won’t have access to the cistern, so they’ll be limited to what water they have. If they’re stubborn, we can mine the tower and bring it down completely.”
Eudocia pulled Micer’s attention to one of Cecilia’s annotations. “She says we can get inside the sally port tonight. We could take the gatehouse and raise the portcullis just before dawn so your men have light while they’re seizing the acropolis.”
“How many fighting men are in the acropolis?” Gil asked.
“A few hundred.” Micer crossed his arms. “We outnumber them, but those walls will give them the advantage unless we catch a break.” He gestured to the papers. “A break like all the weaknesses of the acropolis drawn out in detail for us. We know where they store their food, where they store their weapons, where they store their water. We just don’t know if the information is trustworthy.” He finished with a look at me.
Gil touched my elbow. “Come out to the courtyard with me.”
I followed him outside to one of the fig trees.
“This could be the perfect chance to end Catalan power in the Duchy. We’d be free to live our lives without always looking over our shoulders for revenge-hungry enemies.” He folded his arms. “Or it could be a trap that will end in our deaths.”
“I know.”
“You know her better than any of the rest of us. You have to decide if you can trust her.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “And whatever you decide, I’ll trust you. With my life. With my wife’s life.” His lips quirked up. “I’d rather her stay behind, of course, but she’ll tell me we’re more likely to succeed if she comes . . . and she’ll be right.”
I didn’t answer immediately. I couldn’t, not when it wasn’t just my life I was gambling but all those I most cared about. We might create a victory that would give us peace, or we might find a trap that would devastate us. “I don’t think she would betray me unless her choice was choosing me or Venice.”
“Venice isn’t threatened if the Florentines take Neopatras. Not much anyway.”
“No. But why did she leave? I asked her to stay . . . more than once. I thought she would, especially after . . .” My fingers had wandered to my lips. I pulled them away, but the sun was bright enough that Gil would have noticed.
“Maybe she went back so she can open the postern for us. Or to maintain her cover. If they know what type of information she has and if she disappeared, they could change how the guard is set.”
“Maybe. But she could have told me that.”
“Would you have let her go? Or would you have tried to keep her in the town because going back—no matter how much it would help the assault—would be dangerous and you’re in love with her?”
I sighed. “She might not know I would try to talk her out of it.”
Gil smiled. “You underestimate how predictable you are when it comes to matters of chivalry. She could have guessed that you’d want to protect her. Listen to your heart, Rasheed. How did you feel when you were with her?”
“I’m not sure I can trust my heart.” It was an undisciplined soldier that refused to obey orders and had failed to learn from the past.
“You can because you’ve always let God guide your heart. You can trust Him. Signorina Bertaldo is a different matter altogether. It sounds as though she’s lived a complicated sort of life, and that can make conversations and confessions complicated too. But love can be complicated and still be real.”
My time with Cecilia had involved so much—danger, excitement, exhilaration, and a few cherished quiet moments. Parts had been beautiful, and parts had been painful, but it had all been real.
“I trust her,” I whispered. She hadn’t told me all her secrets, nor had she given up her loyalty to Venice, but I trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t lead me into a trap. Her drawings might not reveal everything she’d learned in her days in the acropolis, but what they included was true.
Gil nodded. “Right. I’ll tell the others that we’re storming the acropolis tonight.”