Rogue Sword (2 page)

His sword leaped forth. “What are you doing?” he barked.

Lucas bowed. “Good morning, Ser Knight.” His voice was not altogether steady. Sweat prickled him.

The cavalier poised his blade. “Good morning to you, Messer Thief.” He snapped out the Venetian patois with a readiness indicating he had been some time in the Republic, but with a distinct accent of Catalonia. “Where is my attendant?”

“Here, my lord, at your command.”

The Catalan lowered his weapon, as blankly as hoped. “What? Have I entered the wrong--No! Where is Giovanni Moxe?”

Need proved a sharp spur. Lucas found himself able to laugh. “Was that his name, Messer? Are you certain? Myself, I wouldn’t trust him to say a truthful Credo. Think!

He abandoned his duty to go rest behind the marble heaped on the waterfront! Naturally, your effects could not be left unwatched, so I completed their stowage and assumed guard over them.”

His educated vocabulary impressed the other, Lucas saw. “Who are you?” demanded the knight, but the creak and thrum of the ship overrode his words. He closed the door to the crowded deck and repeated his question.

“Lucas, my lord. They called me Lucco in Venice.” With a rush of defiance, he tossed his head and declared, “Now I shall again be of my mother’s people, and bear the name she gave me.”

“Do you know your father?”

A calculated gibe. Lucas felt his cheeks go hot as he answered: “I know who he was, Messer. A younger son of the great Torsello family. He was stationed for a couple of years at the factory--the mercantile center--at Canea, on the island of Crete. Then he returned to Venice and died of sickness soon after.”

“Leaving a discarded mistress and her by-blow. A common enough occurrence. But you have uncommon impudence, I must say. Do you know the penalties for illegal embarkation? There are worse ones for murder. Tell the truth, you! What did you do to Giovanni Moxe?”

The sword lifted again. A sunbeam, sickling in as the ship rolled, turned it to bright menace. Lucas gulped.

“As God is my witness, Ser Knight, I didn’t harm him!” he protested. “Not enough to matter. I only left him tied. He’ll get loose within hours. Need drove me. Are we not all commanded to preserve our lives as long as reasonably possible?”

The Catalan’s weapon drooped once more. He stroked his beard and considered the boy with narrowed military eyes. “So?” he replied, smooth again. “Pray, tell me the whole.”

Hopefulness brought Lucas’ smile forth, and the words tripped from his tongue.

“Consider, Messer. I did not force Gasparo Reni’s wife. True, I did not repel her, either. She is pretty, and not much older than I, while her husband is a sullen oaf who went to Eastern lands less than a year after he wed her and was two years gone. Meanwhile I was an apprentice in the countinghouse. She would come visit it--ah, like a sunbeam in the strangling gloom! We would talk. On some holidays I was invited to the house, most decorously. At last I took to serenading beneath her window. One night she let a rope fall from her sill, down to my borrowed gondola. . . . Well, when old Reni came back, a few weeks ago, I thought a very sweet time had ended. But yesterday she sent me a message: he was to be gone after dark, to an entertainment at the Rialto. Would it not have been churlish and ungrateful of me not to respond, Messer? Yet how could we have known he would return home hours before any man who has any sense of joy in life should, and enter without the simple courtesy of knocking?”

Despite himself, the Catalan could be seen to fight an answering grin. To the haughty nobles of Iberia, a merchant’s honor was of no account. “So you chose this means of escape,” he said. “Well, I can understand Venice is no longer healthful for you.” Harshly then, as the thought smote him: “But you were craven to abandon the woman to his wrath.”

“Oh, no fear for her, Messer. Donna Moreta is of the Grimiani, and you know how powerful that family is. He’d never dare use violence on her. In fact, now that there is no object for his revenge, why should he make himself ridiculous by saying anything at all of what has happened? Better to keep the whole affair secret, no? Wherefore I did her the best service by fleeing.”

“A rascal is never at loss for a reason. But can you give me one for not handing you over to the captain, that he may return you to your just punishment?”

“I can give you many reasons, Ser Knight.” Lucas throttled his fear to speak glibly. “
Imprimis
, Our Lord bade us forgive the wrongdoer
. Secundus
, I have done you no harm, except to rid you of a servant so lazy and stupid he would leave his work to talk with a pimp.
Tertius
, you would be without a servant if I was arrested, which is not suitable to your dignity.
Quartus
, I am a most excellent servant. Besides menial tasks, I can read, write, and do sums; speak flowing Greek, with more than a smattering of other languages; sing rather well, play on whistle or cither, compose poems in all approved forms, sail a boat, fight, spy on your enemies, advise on affairs of the heart, and learn anything else my master cares to teach me.”

“Ah, so.” With a sudden gesture, the man put sword back in sheath. He was getting more than a little interested. “Where have you gained these marvelous abilities?”

The story was soon told, however much Lucas yielded to the temptation of embellishment when he saw ids persuasion succeeding. After her Venetian lover departed, his Cretan mother had gone back to her own fisher people and married one of them. Lucas learned the handling of small craft from his stepfather. But an uncle of his mothers, a monk, saw uncommon possibilities of another sort and educated the lad in the Greek and Roman alphabets. Likewise he learned the speech both of the Cretans and their unloved Venetian overlords. His mother died when he was eleven and her husband, with an eye to making good connections, inquired about his natural father. Pietro Torsello turned out also to be dead. But under Venetian law, no child could be totally disinherited, and Lucas’ paternity was demonstrable. So another of the Torselli undertook, grudgingly, to make provision for him and brought him to Venice. Here he was apprenticed in the countinghouse of Gasparo Reni.

It suited him ill. He became the wildest of his fellows, always ready for a fight or a frolic--and the Queen of the Adriatic offered both, in rich variety, to those who explored her byways. Though often in trouble, the boy showed such a potentially useful talent for languages that he was never severely punished. Simply by spending time in that polyglot city, he had become able to get along in half a dozen tongues. As for his warlike capabilities: he had been in more than his share of rough-and-tumble encounters; and early this year, on reaching his fifteenth birthday, he was enrolled in the arbalestiers like any other Venetian youth.

At the end of the tale, the knight said weightily, “If half what you claim is true, you’ll indeed be more valuable to me than that Moxe fellow. But since I plan to return through Venice, you must be left in Constantinople when I go.”

“I shall find others who can use my services,” cried Lucas, all ablaze. “Have no fears, Signor. I’ll reach Cathay itself!”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, if God doesn’t weary of such a scamp,” said the man dryly. “Well--do you know who I am?”

Lucas cocked his head. “Plainly, Signor, you’re from Catalonia province, in the Kingdom of Aragon. Doubtless you’ve spent much time in the Sicilian War. From your bearing, you must be a rich hom.” He used the Catalan phrase, “great man,” meaning a scion of those baronial families which enjoyed extraordinary powers. And he continued in the same language, haltingly and ungrammatically but understood:

“Yet forgive me if I suggest you are wealthier in birth than gold. Your baggage and accommodations are not those of a moneyed lord. Was your estate perhaps devastated when the French invaded Aragon seven years ago? Ah, well, I’m certain you fought valiantly and had much to do with expelling them.”

“Know, I am the knight Jaime de Caza, traveling in the service for my namesake the Lord King of Aragon.”

“At your command, En Jaime.” Lucas dropped to one knee.

His use of the Catalan honorific was pleasing. Most Italians would have said “Don Jaime,” as if the visitor were from the Kingdom of Castile. The nobleman nodded in a friendly way. “My mission is not secret,” he said. “Now that Aragon has a new king, I am sounding out the attitude of certain powers concerning the war for Sicily that still drags on. Having been in Venice, I am bound similarly to the Byzantine Imperium. Since I talk no Greek, I admit that your instruction en route would be welcome; and afterward I can certainly make use of a confidential amanuensis. So be it, then, as long as you remain faithful. You shall have whatever pay you are worth, and I will not mention to anyone that you are not my original servant.”

It was more than Lucas had dared imagine. “Blessings upon you, my master!” he shouted, bouncing back to his feet. Gaiety torrented from him. “I must go to work at once, to prepare a suitable midday meal. I confess I’m not expert in the kitchen, but I know what tastes good. So by adding a leek here and a smidgen of cheese there, a dash of vinegar and enough olive oil, I’ll feel my way toward a dish not altogether insulting. And, oh, yes, Messer, I must see what clothes you have along, brush them and--Would you like entertainment? I can tell you the most scandalous stories; or chivalric romances, if you prefer; or a ballade or sirvente--” Hustling about the narrow cabin, laughing, singing, chattering, he soon crowded the other out onto the deck. And before him there shone the vision of Cathay and new horizons.

Fourteen years had passed when Lucas, called Greco, saw Constantinople for the second time. That was in April, in the year 1306.

He stood in the Augustaion, waiting for Brother Hugh de Tourneville to meet him as they had agreed. This was the heart of the city. On one side rose the wall about the Imperial grounds. Mailed Varangian Guardsmen with axes on their shoulders stood on the top and at the gates; their helmets flamed in the late afternoon sunlight. Above the parapets could be seen the roof of the Brazen House, their barracks, and a shining glimpse of the Daphne and Sigma Palaces. Behind Lucas, over flat intervening roofs, soared the domes of St. Sophia; around a corner bulked the Hippodrome, crumbling with age, its arches a shelter for beggars, prostitutes, and bandits by night.

Old and corrupt the Byzantine Empire might be, but nonetheless, here it surged with humanity. The citizens themselves, in long dalmatic and cope, dark, curly-haired, big-nosed, more Anatolian than Greek by blood, and styling themselves Romans; a noble in gold and silken vestments, looking with jaded eyes from the palanquin in which four slaves bore him; a priest, strange to the Western mind in his beard, black robe, and brimless hat; foreigners, English, Flemish, German, French, Iberian, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Mongol, half the world poured down the throat of New Rome. Their voices, the shuffle and clatter of feet, the ring of hoofs and rumble of wagon wheels, made an ocean-like roar. A smell of dust, smoke, cooking oil, sweat, sewage, horse droppings, rolled thick across the grumbling and grinding city. High overhead, sunlight caught the white wings of sea gulls.

Lucas shifted his stance, ill at ease. His memories of his first time here were still bright; but today he saw how much of that glamor had merely been his own youth. He shook his head, denyingly, for it was wrong that a man not yet thirty should feel old. He could not have changed so much. Could he? His bones had lengthened and his muscles filled out. His face, which he kept clean-shaven as part of an inborn fastidiousness, had become a man’s rather than a boy’s, flat-cheeked and square-jawed, with deep lines from nose to lips. The sun and wind of Asia had darkened his skin, lightened his hair, and put crow’s feet around his eyes. But he was stronger in every way than he had been then, wiser (or at least shrewder), with a thousand experiences both violent and subtle to prove he could rely on himself.

Perhaps, he thought, that was what he had lost. Fourteen years ago, Cathay had lain ahead of him; now it lay behind.

And scarce a ducat to show for it all, he added ruefully. His clothes--blouse, breeches, hose, shabby leather doublet and stained cloak, faded red bonnet--were a goodly proportion of his entire wealth. From time to time he had known riches, but . . .

“Ah, good evening, my friend.”

Lucas bowed. “Good evening to you, Brother Hugh.” They spoke in Genoese, the dominant Western tongue hereabouts, though both were also familiar with Romaic Greek. A chance encounter yesterday had led to mutual liking; both had considerable free time, and the city was well worth their joint exploration.

“Did your business speed?” asked Lucas.

“No,” said Hugh. “After cooling my heels in an antechamber, from morning until almost now, I was told the official could not see me yet. Oh, the underling was most polite, but his glee was plain.”

“Aye, they’d enjoy baiting the representative of a Catholic brotherhood, in this most Orthodox capital. I would do them a mischief, were I you.”

Hugh smiled. “If I lose my temper, will they not have succeeded in their aim? I can be patient; sit there as many days as need be, thinking my own thoughts. In the end, I’ll outlast their delayings.” Sadness crossed his countenance. “After all, they do have good reason to hate everything Western.”

They began to walk, off the forum and down narrow streets between high walls. Daylight should linger long enough for them to visit the famous Mangana building. Afterward they would share supper. Hugh limped, the result of an old wound, and leaned on a staff; but his leathery frame did not seem to tire. He was tall and bony, with England plain to see in his long face and long straight nose. Against the weather-beaten skin, his eyes were a startling blue. The grizzled hair was cut short, and he wore a close-trimmed beard. His dress was the humble garb of the Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem: over plain clothes, a black mantle with an eight-pointed white cross on the breast.

But that organization of warrior friars held lands across half Europe. Hugh himself had fought at Acre, when the Moslems drove the last Christian dominion out of the Holy Land. Since then, the Knights of St. John had found refuge, like their Templar rivals, with the Frankish King of Cyprus; but their wealth and power remained. They acquired warships to guard the Christian and harry the infidel by sea, and lately they nursed some larger plan. What that was, Hugh kept secret. However, this gentle, drawling second son of a Lincolnshire baron had risen to the rank of Knight Companion of the Grand Master. He would not come hither to interview officials of the East Roman Empire, subtly probing strengths and weaknesses, for nothing.