Thebes, Greece, Spring 1390
Odd things happened in bathhouses. I’d spent most of my childhood in the establishment my father ran in a little town along the old Roman road through Valencia, and eleven years had passed since I’d bought a bathhouse in Thebes. I’d seen my share of missing clothing, suspicious liaisons, and gaggles of naked men playing juvenile games that involved tossing scalding water at their opponents. Odd things were expected in bathhouses, but I never could have predicted how a series of them coming all within a day of each other would upend me, bringing together the past and the present in a way that would irrevocably alter my future.
“Rasheed!” Eudocia called from somewhere in the middle of the bathhouse. Most people would have thought the voice calm, but I knew her well enough to recognize the unease that had crept in. She wasn’t the sort to call without reason, so I left one of my employees, Michali, to deal with the gathering line of patrons. I kept my hand on my sword hilt as I walked through the apodyterium, where patrons dressed and undressed, through the warm tepidarium, and into the steamy caldarium.
We weren’t open yet, but a man had arrived early and somehow slipped inside. Now he was backed against the wall, only partially clothed, while Eudocia held a knife to his throat. Clean towels were scattered across the tile floor, overturned buckets still rolled slowly toward the corners of the room, and swirls of steam rose from the hot pool, spiraling into the air before they escaped through a small opening in the vaulted roof.
The man turned his face toward me and seemed relieved, until I drew my longsword. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“This man seems to be confusing a bathhouse with a brothel and needs to be escorted from the premises.” Eudocia removed her blade from the man’s neck but kept it handy as she stepped away. “I don’t know how he got in so early. I doubt he paid or is due a refund.”
The man rubbed his neck and glared at Eudocia, then at me. I raised my blade to discourage him from doing anything stupid. Anger made his hands fist and his skin turn a mottled purple. “It was an accident. I slipped and fell into you.” He spoke sloppy Italian—probably a Florentine who’d been up all night drinking.
Eudocia’s jaw tightened. “What you did was no accident. You’re lucky I cleaned the floor this morning and don’t want to clean it again, or I would have called my husband and he’d have turned you into a bruised and bleeding mess.”
The thumps and thwacks that sounded rhythmically from the courtyard told me exactly what her husband was doing: chopping wood to feed the bathhouse’s ovens. She would have called Gil instead of me, but his eyes had never fully recovered from an eleven-year-old injury, and the steam of the caldarium disoriented his sight more than most places.
Contempt worked its way into the man’s expression as he glanced at me. “So you called him instead?”
“Yes.” Eudocia’s lips quirked slightly. “A brother rather than a husband. Be grateful we’re in merciful moods this morning.”
I grabbed the man’s arm and led him out the back exit, avoiding the patrons waiting at the main entrance. His anger and contempt were now touched with confusion, and I guessed why. Eudocia had indeed become like a sister to me in the years since we’d met. But the bather with wandering hands would notice only the different shades of our skin—hers olive, mine brown. Our hair was the same color, black, but hers fell in gentle waves, and mine sprung out in tight curls. We didn’t look like siblings, but we’d adopted each other as family since we had none of our own, other than Gil.
“She’s not your sister. And I want my clothes back.”
“I’ll throw them out to you. You’re not to come back to this bathhouse. Ever. Most of us who work here are armed.” Habits picked up as mercenaries hadn’t faded, and though Thebes had been calmer, for the most part, since the Navarrese had taken it from the Catalans and then sold it to the Florentines, unrest in the Duchy of Athens had never come to a complete end. “How did you get in?”
His eyes fixed on the gate at the far side of the bathhouse’s large back courtyard. It wasn’t locked. We left it open this time of day so the hired attendants could enter. Normally, one of us would have seen anyone coming in from the alley, but if the man had slipped in while Gil and Michali were tending the ovens, the courtyard might have been empty.
I threw the man into the alley none too gently. “Wait there for your clothes.”
Rage at being left to wait in the alley, half naked, made his face turn purple again. I planned to take my time fetching his clothes and give the rage time enough to turn to humiliation.
“What happened?” The chopping had stopped, and Gil stood behind me with the ax balanced on his shoulder. Gillen Marinelarena had been my closest friend since my family had disowned me and the caravan I’d sought refuge with had journeyed from Valencia into Navarre. I’d been a stranger in a foreign land until Gil had convinced his uncle to let me join their company of mercenaries.
Gil had been there that dreadful night when my Uncle Tahir had found me. Word that I’d become Christian had filtered back home, and Tahir hadn’t been pleased. I’d already shamed my family by kissing a woman promised to another man, and that moment of passion had led to my exile. Apostatizing from Islam had been a step too far—one that warranted execution to restore the family’s honor. Gil hadn’t been able to stop Tahir from carving his knife across my face, but he’d saved my life that night and saved it again during our campaigns in Durazzo and Thebes. We’d fought against enemies, illness, and injury. When our mercenary days were behind us, we’d bought the bathhouse together.
I gave the half-naked intruder a glare. “He snuck in and was pestering your wife.”
“Is Eudocia all right?” Gil’s thick eyebrows pulled in concentration. He seemed torn between rushing into the bathhouse to comfort her and running out into the alley to take revenge on the man I’d deposited there.
“Yes. I didn’t see what happened, but she had her knife out—no doubt before he’d done much.” Eudocia could handle just about anything, but if Gil went to check on her now, we’d be late to open. “Will you make sure he doesn’t come back inside?”
“Is it wrong for me to hope he tries?” Gil adjusted his hold on the ax. His voice fell to a whisper. “I didn’t want her to come today. It’s still too soon.”
I gripped his arm in sympathy because I didn’t have adequate words, not in any of the languages I’d picked up in my thirty-three years of life. I didn’t know any two people as in love as Gil and Eudocia, but that didn’t mean crushing grief couldn’t find them and swallow them whole. They’d get through their latest loss, I knew they would, but it would take some time.
Eudocia was still in the caldarium, sorting towels into two piles: those to be washed again and those to be folded for use by patrons. I gathered the buckets and arranged them into two stacks.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked. Her tunica looked as I’d expected it to, clean and tidy and cinched with a leather belt at the waist. A waist that wasn’t supposed to be so thin, not this spring.
“No.” She moved to a bench and winced as she sat. Then she started folding the clean towels.
“Maybe you should rest anyway. It’s only been a fortnight, and your body needs time to heal. Gil can take you home—we’ve enough wood to last the day.” She was perfectly capable of walking herself home, but in case the troublemaker lingered, it was best to send someone with her.
“If I cannot give my husband a child, then I can at least help ensure his bathhouse prospers. I’ve already been gone too much lately—Gil too. It’s not fair to leave so much of the work to you.”
I scooped up the dirty towels and put them in a large basket. “I’m only doing a little extra. We’ve a good staff. Michali could run the bathhouse all by himself if needed. And I’ve you to thank for finding him.” The one-time street urchin had proven the best of workers, and now he was almost a man, capable of any of the heavy tasks. “Besides, it’s only for a little while. Just until you’ve got your strength back.”
I should have said more, promised her that someday she and Gil would have a baby. That was what I’d told them the first five or six times they’d lost an unborn child, but now I was having trouble believing the results would ever be anything other than false hope followed by grief and disappointment.
Eudocia smoothed the last towel and put the pile in its place on the shelf. “It’s worse, spending all day in an empty house.” She checked that the baskets of soap and pumice were full, then ran a hand across her abdomen with a sigh. “I thought this time it would be different. I felt him move. I never had before.”
“Gil told me.” His hazel eyes had shone with joy that morning when he’d described it—a wonder tempered by a fear forged in experience. A few days later, the baby had come. I hadn’t been there, but I’d heard how tiny the child had been, small enough to fit in Gil’s hand. The little boy had never had the strength to cry, hadn’t even breathed. And Eudocia had lost enough blood to make the midwife and Gil fear she wouldn’t live.
“Did the man give you much trouble when you took him outside?” she asked.
“None to speak of. When he attacked you—do you think he knew about your past?” Men had come before, old clients from the days when Eudocia had been a slave and her master had used her for theft, blackmail, and other schemes. She’d given up that type of life shortly after meeting Gil, but she’d been good at it, and people desperate for her help weren’t always pleased to hear she’d retired.
“I think he was just a leech who thought he saw an opportunity.”
“Well, I left the leech in the alley behind the courtyard. I’d leave him out there all day, shivering, but I don’t want his clothes taking up space in the apodyterium. I think Gil is hoping he’ll try to come back in so he can test his blade. The fool doesn’t believe you’re really my sister, but he’ll believe the end of an ax.”
That brought the hint of a smile to her face. “You are my favorite brother, Rasheed. Thank you.”
Michali stuck his head around the corner from the tepidarium. His curly dark hair was uncovered, and he seemed hesitant to interrupt. “Is everything all right? There’s a bit of a crowd waiting.”
Eudocia grabbed the dirty towels. “I’ll wash these and stay away from the men.”
I nodded. “I’ll get the lowlife his things so we can open.”
* * *
For the rest of the morning, men gave me their fees and went to wash themselves in my bathhouse. A few chatted about their health and the weather and the latest news—raids by Turkish pirates, rumors of alliances and betrayals between the Navarrese, Florentine, Greek, Venetian, and Catalan forces that occupied various parts of the Duchy. The areas each group controlled seemed to change as often as the moon. I pulled out the amphora of watered-down wine for our most loyal patrons, but most preferred to socialize in the other rooms of the bathhouse.
Just after midday, a woman walked into the bathhouse entrance alone. The angle of her hat revealed smooth, fair hair that glistened when she walked past the window. Her clothing was Western rather than Greek in cut, and the quality of the cloth hinted at wealth. A small mouth curved up in interest as she gazed at the decorative brickwork of the ceiling and wandered toward the apodyterium.
I cleared my throat, and her gray eyes rested on me. She was beautiful—the prettiest face I’d seen all year—and she smelled of exotic perfume. I swallowed. “We are happy to serve women in the afternoon, but we haven’t yet made the switch. If you return in an hour, the inner rooms of the bathhouse will be cleared of men.” Based on her clothing, I’d chosen to speak Italian, something I’d picked up over the last few years with the influx of Florentine residents.
She smiled, a gesture that showed comprehension and warmth, though it was not so different from the admiration she’d shown the ceiling.
“You’re welcome to wait, of course.” I gestured toward the stone bench cut into the wall of the anteroom, lined with cushions of undyed linen. I wouldn’t mind her staying. She was pleasant to look at, and maybe with enough time, I’d think of something worthwhile to say to her. Beyond that, something about the mix of confident eyes and a reserved posture piqued my curiosity.
“I’m afraid I’m not here for a bath. My uncle is looking for someone and thought we should check here, but I seem to have gotten ahead of him.” Her words were Italian, with a Venetian dialect. Odd since the Venetians and the Florentines, at least those in the Duchy, were currently hostile to one another, and Thebes had a Florentine lord.
I glanced at the apodyterium. “Who is your uncle looking for?” I didn’t know the names of all the men who used the bathhouse, but most of the patrons were regulars. I could give a reasonable estimate of how long any of them would take.
She studied my face. “You, I think.”
“Me?” I fiddled with my quill to cover my surprise. “I don’t know more than a handful of people from Venice.”
Surprise worked its way into her lips and her voice. “How did you know my uncle and I are from Venice?”
“The way you pronounce your words.”
She frowned. “I did not realize our speech was so distinctive.”
Was she worried someone working for Nerio Acioli or Theodore Paleologus would arrest her? Venice was currently on bad terms with both. “I don’t work for the Florentines or the Greeks, so you have nothing to fear from me. Why is your uncle looking for a bathhouse owner in Thebes?”
“He didn’t say anything about a bathhouse owner, but he and Signor Querini mentioned a scarred Moor.”
Why was someone from Venice looking for a Moor with a scar? I fit that description, with a line that ran from my left temple to my lips, but I was hardly the only dark-skinned man with a scar across his face.
Two men walked in wearing hosa and houppelande of high quality. Probably the uncle and Signor Querini.
“There you are, Cecilia. You shouldn’t wander off,” one said to the woman. He appeared not much older than me, with intelligent gray eyes the same shade as the woman’s. Perhaps that meant he was the uncle.
He stepped closer to the desk where I sat to greet patrons, take their fees, and note everything down in the ledger. “I’m in search of a legend, a story I overheard not long ago about how the Navarrese Company took this city eleven years ago. Perhaps you can help me.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
Michali leaned in from the apodyterium, probably wanting to see if he should expect more patrons. I scratched my right ear, our signal for caution. I didn’t like people inquiring about how the city went from Catalan to Navarrese hands. Anyone asking might also be seeking revenge. Not everyone had been happy about the change, and as someone intimately involved in the details, I preferred my role to remain anonymous. “There are many rumors about what happened. What stories do they tell in Venice?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at Cecilia with a hint of anger. “Why did you tell him we’re from Venice?”
Cecilia’s cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink. “He guessed.”
I did my best to come to her aid. “The dialect is quite distinctive. We see enough Venetian merchants to recognize your speech from the Florentines and the Genoese.”
The uncle glanced at me with a curt nod, then turned back to his niece and lowered his voice. “I know my brother chose to involve you in much of our family’s work, but things have changed. You must learn your new place, and it does not involve meddling in the affairs of men.”
“My father appreciated my abilities.” Cecilia matched her uncle’s soft volume, but she was close enough that I could recognize hurt and resentment in her words.
The other man stepped forward and offered Cecilia his arm. “And I’m sure I will also appreciate both your insight and your talents once we are married. She’s done no harm, Signor Bertaldo. Besides, Venice and the Navarrese are working together now, and if this man is who we think he is, he has Navarrese connections.”
Cecilia’s face remained pink, and her gaze rested on the floor.
The man at her arm gave me a polite nod. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Signor Querini of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Signor Querini.” I hesitated, then gave my name. “I am Rasheed ibn Musa.” None of them reacted. Good. They hadn’t heard of me. Gil and Eudocia stepped through the main entrance, no doubt alerted by Michali.
The Venetians glanced back to see who the newcomers were.
“Patrons?” Signor Bertaldo asked.
“No,” I said. “Messer and Madonna Marinelarena, the other owners of the bathhouse.” Neither Gil nor Eudocia were Italian, but I used Italian titles anyway and muddled their surname so the newcomers were unlikely to remember it. I glanced at Gil. “Signor Querini and Signor and Signorina Bertaldo were about to share the latest outlandish rumor they heard about how the Catalans lost Thebes.”
Signor Querini took several moments to study Gil and Eudocia, then turned to scrutinize me. The moment he did, Gil’s hand crept to the hilt of his sword.
“Our information is more than outlandish rumor,” Querini said. “The city fell due to the efforts of a small group with unusual talents. That is who we seek.”
I resisted the urge to ask why he sought the crew that had turned Thebes and instead tried to deflect him. “A Navarrese army captured Thebes. Several hundred soldiers. Not a small group.”
Querini wouldn’t be sidetracked. He released Cecilia’s arm and stepped closer to me. Despite his rich clothes, he moved like a warrior. “The Navarrese Company sent spies ahead of them. Two Basques and a scarred Moor. They worked with the archbishop of Thebes, a Greek slave, and a few others to turn the city. The army wouldn’t have gotten inside the Cadmea without them. We seek their help.”
The man’s information was good, and I wondered at his source. Regardless, that incident was in the past, and I wasn’t looking for adventure. Nor were Gil and Eudocia. “I wish you luck in finding what you need, but I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong bathhouse.”
Signor Bertaldo spoke next. “We have resources throughout the Duchy and are willing to pay handsomely. Surely a group who could steal a city from men like the Catalans can help us steal a hostage. The reward would be generous. None of you would ever have to work again.”
Steal a hostage? The clues all came together in my mind, revealing their aim. “Nerio Acioli. Is that who you’re after?” Acioli was the Florentine lord of Thebes, Athens, and Corinth. Last I’d heard, the Navarrese had detained him in one of their fortresses.
Bertaldo leaned forward. “The Most Serene Republic of Venice recently purchased several Greek lands. We wish to take possession of them—we’re after Argos and Nauplia.”
I’d heard as much. Venice had purchased both lands from a widow who couldn’t protect them herself, but before they could take custody, Nerio Acioli and his daughter’s Greek husband, Theodore Paleologus, had sent their armies to seize the lands for themselves. “I heard Venice hired the Navarrese Company to help win the lands.”
“We did, and they’ve helped us take Nauplia, but not Argos.”
“So you have Nauplia in your possession and Nerio Acioli as a hostage.” I fiddled with the quill again. “I thought you were in negotiations with Theodore Paleologus over Argos. Surely he’ll cooperate when your ally holds his wife’s father.”
Querini’s hand fisted, then flexed. “Negotiations have stalled, so we are seeking alternative solutions. You.” He gestured to me, then to Gil and Eudocia. “Who better to outsmart the Navarrese than men who once worked with them?”
I tapped my fingers along the ledger. “That would put the Venetian alliance with the Navarrese at risk, wouldn’t it?”
“The Navarrese shouldn’t have taken Acioli.” Bertaldo’s mouth hardened into a tense line. “They promised him safe passage for negotiations. And they promised us assistance in taking Argos, but it is still in Greek hands. Acioli is a bargaining chip. One we wish to hold ourselves.”
I leaned back on my stool. They were about to betray an ally, and they wanted our help. What was more, they wanted Gil and me to work against the company we’d once been part of. “The story and your plan are both fascinating, but we are not the people you seek.”
The three of them studied the three of us. Signor Querini narrowed his eyes as they fell on me. “You are the scarred Moor who worked with a pair of Basque spies and a Greek slave.”
“I am a Moor. And I have several scars. But scars like mine are common enough.”
Gil spoke next. “And we have no slaves, Greek or otherwise, in this bathhouse. All the attendants are free men and women.”
“And the owners? None of them were ever slaves?” Querini eyed Eudocia. “We were told it was the slave, a woman, who was most key in the city’s fall.”
“There are no slaves here.” Gil’s voice held a sharpness to it. “We’re approaching our busiest time of day, when we switch from male to female patrons. We wish you peace, but you best be on your way.”
The Venetian men looked at each other. Cecilia watched Gil and Eudocia, then turned her eyes on me again. I held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. Something about her intrigued me, but the group as a whole made me nervous.
Bertaldo straightened the cuffs of his sleeves and gritted his teeth. “If you change your mind and remember where we might find these people, the reward would be generous.” He motioned to his niece and Signor Querini, and the three of them left, though Cecilia glanced back a final time before she disappeared through the doorway.
Eudocia spoke first. “How did they learn so much about us? Our roles were not widely known.”
I walked to the doorway and looked out at the backs of the three Venetians. “I don’t know, but I’ll follow them. We ought to keep an eye on them while they’re in Thebes. If they tell the wrong people what they know, there could be trouble. And they told us too much to leave us be.” If we took what they’d told us to the Navarrese Company—that the Venetians wanted to kidnap their prisoner—it could destroy the alliance. In their place, I’d keep a careful watch on us.
“I’ll go.” Eudocia arranged her head veil to cover more of her face. “I’ll blend in better.”
“And I shall go with you,” Gil said.
Eudocia shook her head. “You’re too tall. They’ll see you too easily if they look back. And you won’t be much help spotting them.”
“I’ll slouch. And I’m not coming for my eyes but for my sword. You can’t very well go by yourself. Not when it might become three against one.”
“The girl didn’t look dangerous.” Eudocia had already moved to the doorway.
“Neither did you when we first met.” A smile crept into Gil’s voice, the first I’d heard all day from him. He turned to me. “Sorry to steal your idea, Rasheed, but she’s right. She’s the best at this.”
I nodded. Arguing would take too long, and Eudocia was skilled at tracking people in crowds without being noticed. “Go, but rest on the way back.”
Eudocia’s mouth opened to respond, but Gil answered for her. “Yes, we’ll do that.”
The two of them slipped onto the street and soon disappeared in the direction the Venetians had gone.