Rogue Sword (23 page)

Lucas thought of a sword at his breast, of slander and machinations, but chiefly of Djansha in a slave pen. He needed a while to say, “Yes.”

“Good!” Hugh smote his hands together. “God be praised!”

Eagerness jumped up in him. “I do want you,” he said. “You’re far from a saint, but you test as true as I hoped. I think the whole Order will profit from your skill.”

Somehow, Lucas could not respond with more than an outward smile. The end of unsureness made room for him to realize, in one wave, just how lonely he was for Djansha. But he compelled himself to listen. Hugh hobbled back and forth, striking fist in palm as he cried:

“Aye, indeed we can use you. We’ll need many men, a few years hence, but you we need now. I may as well tell you the truth, under pledge of secrecy. You’d learn it as soon as you took up your duties. And by all the angels, it boils in me!

“You can guess how little satisfied we are here in Cyprus. Not only are we hampered at every turn, mere guests of a king with scant interest in our purposes: a usurper, actually, since this year. No, for many of us, the compromise we must make, the shortsighted and unjust laws we must obey--must even help enforce--those are the worst things. Since William de Villaret was elected Grand Master, certain schemes have been debated among us: It’d be false modesty to deny that I myself have urged their acceptance, have traveled, worked, spied, intrigued, fought. My mission in Constantinople was a part of that: sounding out the Imperial attitude and capabilities. Other times I’ve taken ship, gone to the very place, sailed around it, made landings and short incursions. ... I speak of Rhodes. The beautiful, unhappy island of Rhodes. D’you take my meaning, Lucas?

“Constantinople’s suzerainty is a farce. Rhodes has become the haunt and booty of every pirate in Anatolia. Merely ridding its surviving people of those vultures would be a worthy deed in the sight of God. Would it not? But to keep the island! To make it our own! The dominion of the Knights of St. John, subject to none but the Holy Father. Governed as wisely as God will allow us poor fools to do. A fortress of Christendom, at the very gates of the Turk!

“This year God took good Master William home to his rest. But already we’ve elected his brother Fulk, who is still more zealous. Our decision is made. We shall do it. A secret agreement has been reached with a Genoese corsair, Vignolo de’ Vignoli. Call me not a hypocrite. We must use what instruments come to hand. We need ships and men. When the time comes for the grand assault, the Pope can preach a Crusade. But you’ll understand there must first be scouting, probing, testing of defenses. Our true objective must not be revealed beforehand, lest the infidel strengthen his positions. For the task will be hard at best--but was there ever a more gallant one? In the next year or three, we must therefore practice guile, use agents . . . rogues, if need be, who’d fain win some remission of Purgatory by aiding our cause . . . rogues like Vignolo or yourself, my friend!

“And afterward, well, you spoke of desiring a country fit to dwell in as a man of peace. I should think a merchant could find ample profit in the course of helping to build a useful trade out of Rhodes.

“What say you, Lucas? Are you ready to lay the groundwork for a new Crusade?”

However late in the year, it seemed as if half the world were at Famagusta. As Lucas walked along the waterfront, he saw a variety and a magnificence such as Constantinople herself could scarcely boast.

The day was cold, wind driving low clouds like smoke over a dull sky. Beyond the sea wall, waves chopped gray-green. Yet the dressed stone of houses, sheds, defenses, held a glow. There were smells, not only paint and tar, but sandalwood, cinnamon, spikenard, pepper, ginger, a hint of baled silks, barreled wines and dyes, everything that was voluptuous, gathered here at the crossroads of three continents. A hundred ships lay at the docks--galleys, cogs, dromonds, dhows, feluccas, their yards rakish against heaven. The men who brawled and bustled through the streets were as mixed as their vessels: Iberian, Italian, French, German, Flemish, English, looked homelike among so many brown Moors, long-bearded Armenians, robed Syrians, stocky Turks, shy visitors from Tartary and the Indies. The bells of a dozen sects clanged through the wind; the talk, raucous, greedy, profane, torrented in more languages than Lucas could even recognize.

Despite the noise and brilliance around him, he drew his cloak tighter. The air bit with a chill that he knew was largely in his own soul. He found his attention dwelling less on walls and spires than on a Cypriote laborer who cringed like a beaten dog as the retinue of a Frankish baron passed by. When he came near a slave barracks, the sour smell drowned all spices.

He thought of Djansha in such a place, and his need of her clawed at him.

Trying to forget it, he directed his mind toward a number of ships along an outer wharf. They were lean, swift-looking galleys, worn with hard usage but carefully maintained, with catapults on deck and bronze beaks for ramming. Untrustful of the harbor guards, their captains left two men stationed on each. Even at this distance, Lucas could discern a certain gaudiness about those sailors. They swaggered.

The ships must be from Vignolo’s fleet, he decided. Brother Hugh had said the corsair was wintering in Famagusta with a part of his band. Next spring he would again sail forth, to harass and probe the strongholds on the islands around Rhodes. Eventually, if all went well--

A war a man could fight in good conscience, Lucas thought, with chivalrous comrades against an enemy who was nothing but a bandit horde. Afterward, a realm where a man could live in peace, under the reign of justice.

But what is that to me, he thought, if I never see Djansha and our child?

He straightened. He would not admit the possibility. And meanwhile, his lack of her would mask the distastefulness of certain unavoidable tasks. Such as today’s. If he held his mind on Djansha, perhaps he wouldn’t feel too much sting at abasing himself before Gasparo.

The merchant’s house came into view. He knew well the coat of arms painted above its door. It was a long, two-storied affair in the Venetian style. Doubtless it also held offices, though much of Gasparo’s work must be done in the factory. As Lucas mounted the stairs, a footman asked his business.

“I was to see Messer Reni on a matter touching the Knights Hospitallers,” he evaded.

“Ah.” The fellow regarded him with an insolence so open that it must have been ordered. “Then you are Lucco of Candia.” He rang a bell. Another man appeared. “Show this Greek to the master.”

Lucas ate his pride and followed down a long, somberly wainscoted corridor. Cypriote servants, deferential to the Venetian who led him, scurried from room to room. An occasional clerk or apprentice gave the newcomer that cool, appraising stare he remembered from years past.

I will soon be finished here, he told himself.

Brother Hugh had insisted he come. Lucas Greco was bidden an excellent position as the knight’s personal amanuensis--which meant everything from interpreter to warrior, with all the associated chances for profit and distinction. But first Lucas Greco must purge himself of that old offense which had made his persecution not wholly unjustified. Hugh himself was unsure why Gasparo was so embittered. To bring this meeting about had taken all the immense pressure which the Hospitaller could exert. “In the end he yielded,” said Hugh. “He’ll terminate his feud and see that the charges against you are dropped. But his acquiescence was grudging, and contingent on your humbling yourself to him--which is his right.”

Recalling the hatred that had glared at him across a sword blade, Lucas wondered if matters were indeed that simple. And he was unarmed. As he walked farther down the tunnel of the hallway, among candle flames, his spine prickled.

The footman indicated a door, but did not move to open it. Lucas himself knocked, pulled the latchstring, stepped through and closed the door again.

Beyond was a small room, oak paneled and austerely furnished. Red velvet drapes were drawn across the glazed windows, so that all the light was from a chandelier and a marble hearth. An escritoire, littered with papers, stood beneath a crucifix done in the grim Hispanic style. Gasparo Reni sat near the fire.

His gross form was clad in robe and hose of rich stuffs but dull brown hues. As Lucas bowed, the jowled, lumpnosed face remained expressionless.

“Good day, Messer,” said Lucas.

Gasparo made no reply. The silence lengthened. The crackle of the fire began to seem very loud. Lucas was on the point of protesting when he realized Gasparo did this by plan, wanting to break his nerve. He took a long breath and made himself stand at ease. I can wait just as long as you, my friend, he thought, and the childishness of it all brought a heartening inward laugh.

Gasparo stirred. “I never expected we’d meet again like this,” he said without welcome.

“Our past encounters were ill,” said Lucas ingratiatingly. “I hope--Brother Hugh de Tourneville hopes--today will mark a change.”

“Aye, you always had a gift for worming your way into the favor of the great.”

Lucas swallowed hard. He must not become angry. “I’m here at Brother Hugh’s behest, to make amends for what is long past, Messer.”

“As if you could!” Gasparo mastered himself. “You may as well sit down,” he said. Lucas obeyed. They avoided each other’s eyes.

Finally Lucas said, “See here, Messer Reni, I’m no more eager to stay than you are to have me. The wrongdoing is not all on my side, since the day you attacked me unprovoked in Constantinople. You know not how much you’ve cost me. But I ask no redress for that. I mention it only so you’ll feel yourself even with me, and thus be more disposed to end this quarrel.”

Gasparo sat up straight. It seemed as if a light flickered in him. “I caused you grief?”

“No matter.”

“I want to know!”

Before that avidness, Lucas felt a quick horror. The sense was eerily familiar, and he could not think why, but chased a memory down dark byways. The answer came like a blow: thus had he felt when Violante spoke to him in madness under the walls of Gallipoli.

“What does it concern you?” he snapped. “You’re quiet enough about your reason for wanting me dead.”

Gasparo grew motionless. When at last he uttered words, they were unsteady: “You know what you did to the house that had sheltered you.”

Loathing and anger shoved the imprudent retort out of Lucas’ mouth: “Sheltered me? Made me an ill-paid servant! I owed you nothing except my labor. That you got, and your overseers cuffed me and insulted me into the bargain. As for your wife--when were you ever a husband to her? You and your Eastern trips! I can remember how young and merry she was when she came to your house. She’d laugh like a child at sight of a kitten with a thimble or my own poor playing on the cither. You took her for her dowry and her family connections, as you would acquire any useful article of commerce, and put her in your big dank house and went away. Month by month, I saw her fade. Sometimes she’d sit with an old rag doll in her arms--she hid it behind her back when anyone entered, but I was quick to notice things. Before God, you didn’t even give her a baby to ease her loneliness! After we became acquainted, which happened because she’d nothing else to do than visit the countinghouse, she invited me to her home on various pretexts, and we’d talk at length in the presence of an old lady’s maid who was stone deaf. But innocently as saints. For no other reason than that she could taste a moment’s liberty to be herself, not your damned statue-wife!”

A weariness fell over him. He looked into the fire and said, with one corner of his mouth bent upward a little, but sadly, “Oh, I admit the innocence was hers. I was a hot-blooded boy who saw an opportunity and cultivated it. Yet sometimes when I held her in my arms she was weeping, for her lost girlhood and for the thought of you whom she feared. I wonder if you ought not to thank me, Gasparo, that I gave Moreta some warmth. You never did as much.”

The flames sputtered and threw unrestful shadows into the comers. When he glanced up, Lucas was astonished, nearly dismayed, to see the look on Gasparo’s face. It was as if the merchant were being scourged.

He crossed himself with a convulsive motion and said, “Moreta died many years ago.”

“I’d heard that,” said Lucas softly.

“But do you know how she died?”

“No.”

“I’m not a man of fine words.” Hairy fingers wrestled with each other. “I’ve had to work or fight all my life. I leave adornment of a tale to you silken dandies who’ve nothing better to do. But I’ll tell you what you did to me, Lucco. You think dishonoring a man’s bed was mere sport, a good jest. Venice taught you that, I admit--When you got away, I told myself I could not be the butt of laughter. My own apprentice putting horns on me! Nor could I afford to make enemies of Moreta’s family. Especially since I needed her uncle’s help in certain new enterprises. . . . But I told her, when we were alone, what she’d made herself into. Thereafter she slept in the inner suite, and I in the outer room.”

Imagining a terrified girl alone with Gasparo Reni, Lucas dropped his gaze again. Merciful God, he thought, I never foresaw that.

The other man continued, low and flatly, “We went on thus for a few months. Then it became plain she was with child. I may be blaspheming, but sometimes I believe I’ve had my Purgatory during those weeks when first I knew. And must pretend I was the father.

“All this time she’d been so meek. Said almost nothing. Not just keeping out of my way, either. Even I could see she was unhappy, growing haggard, brooding alone. Sometimes, lying awake at night, I’d hear her crying in there. At first that pleasured me. But then, I know not, except I couldn’t lie night after night listening to her cry.

“When she took sick, the physicians said her case was grave. I went in and told her to take better care of herself. All this moping and eating naught would kill a horse. She looked at me--I can’t ever forget how she looked at me--and asked why I cared. But she wasn’t mocking me. She really wondered why I should care what happened to her. How tired she sounded!