Rogue Sword (27 page)

The side door he had in mind opened directly on ground level, below the verandah, with the vaults behind it. He was almost there when a quarrel whined from the loophole in a window shutter. He laid a rope’s end across the nearer animals and got them in front of the door.

“Break it down!” he ordered.

The two sailors’ axes thudded. The horses shifted about, controlled by Lucas at the center of their arc. One fell dead, shaking the ground. The crossbow bolt had gone through its heart.
“Hurry, you apes!”

The door sagged. A corsair threw his weight against it. Four Catalans blocked the entrance. Their bows snapped. Lucas had already ducked. The lead horse reared in agony. Lucas had a flicker of regret--but Djansha was in that house. He dodged under the bellies, among the hoofs, till he stood behind the herd. “Hee-ya!” His whip flew.

The horses were driven forward, into the cellar. The Catalans had to step aside or be trampled. Lucas came immediately behind. His sword flamed at the nearest man. They bounded through the vaults, seeking each other’s lives. The defender made an awkward cut. Before he could recover, Lucas’ point slipped into his neck. Not waiting to see if the wound was fatal, Lucas hurried back to the entrance. The main body of sailors, hidden in the garden, had rushed as soon as the door was forced. Most of the animals were still outside, milling about, offering cover for that dash. The pirates got into the vaults and overwhelmed the guards posted. They were already up the stairs, pouring onto the main floor.

Lucas followed. Lamps and candles seemed blindingly bright after the dimness outside. Silver, gold, silk and velvet, glowed in rooms where men trampled back and forth, thrusting, hewing, slipping in blood and going down under axes. Taken from the rear, the soldiers at the main portal were forced to turn about to fight. Orio’s detachment chopped away that door and fell on them from behind.

Lucas glared around the atrium. One exit, leading to the entrance hall, boiled with combat. Orio’s heavy sword rose and fell, battering down the defense of a man-at-arms who retreated over the blood-soaked carpet. An Almugavare stood above a slain pirate, defying three others to meet his knife. But they fell on him from three sides and killed him. In this situation, the Catalan discipline was of no avail; brute numbers smashed them.

An archway on the left showed a corridor where En Jaime and four men held fast. The
rich hom
’s sword flashed and sang. It was beautiful to behold him. A clot of seamen made little snarling rushes, heard the steel whistle, and retreated again. He saw Lucas beyond them, and must have thought his old attendant was about to intervene. For he saluted once with his sword, then sprang from his defensible position, out into the middle of the corsairs.

He does not wish that I should be his slayer, thought Lucas.

It seemed far away, not very important. He ran down the opposite hall. “Djansha!”

Only the racket of battle answered him. At the end of the passage was the bedchamber once given her. Presumably a man of Gasparo’s had been stationed outside, but was now in the fight. Lucas flung the door open. Light seeped wanly into the room.

First he noticed her loosened hair. It turned the light copper. She wore a thin shift; he could see how she had gained bulk, but those curves brought a tenderness to him such as he had never known before. Her face had thinned. She sat on the floor, leaning against the couch, ankles bound together with rawhide--runaway slave!

“Djansha,” he whispered.

She could not speak, only look at him. She tried to rise, sank down again, shuddered through her whole body. “L-l-lucas,” she said like a prayer. He trod forward.

Her eyes went beyond him. She gasped. He spun on his heel.

Gasparo Reni stood in the door. He was dressed for battle, his ungainly form helmeted and corseleted. A sword was at his waist and a cocked crossbow in his hands. “Drop your weapon,” he said quietly.

Lucas moved to put his body in front of Djansha. “Drop it, I say, or I’ll kill you. And then her.”

The sword fell to the carpet.

With an almost holy light in his eyes, Gasparo breathed, “This much I never dared pray for.”

His bow pointed unwaveringly at Lucas’ breast. This close, it would spit a quarrel through any armor ever forged.

“I helped the defense,” Gasparo said. “My men and I were stationed at the rear entrance. We thought you were simple pirates. When you broke in at the front, we ran to defend it. But I glimpsed you going this way. There is indeed a just God.”

Lucas made a step in his direction. “Stay where you are!” warned Gasparo. “I’ll shoot if you don’t.”

The coldness in Lucas deepened. He saw this room--the folds of a drape, a crack in the plaster, the slightly obtuse angle of a corner--with supernatural clarity. He was not afraid. There seemed no emotion in him at all, except the will that Djansha should live. If he could prolong this talking, something might happen.

“Won’t you shoot anyway?” he taunted.

“Oh, yes. But I want you to hate me first. So that you’ll die not only unshriven, but in the sin of hatred,” Gasparo explained earnestly. “Let me therefore explain what’ll happen to the woman after you are dead.”

“You’ll die too. The corsairs will have this place in minutes.”

“They’ll take ransom for me. I know their breed. Now as to yonder slut of yours, I won’t have much time. But I do have a sharp knife. So--”

Djansha sprang from the floor.

Lucas knew, without time to reason, that she had cut her bonds with his sword while Gasparo’s attention was diverted. The weapon was in her hands as she flung herself in front of her man. She threw it at Gasparo.

The blade clattered across his legs. He tripped. The bow fired. Lucas was already falling, arms around Djansha to drag her with him.

The bolt grazed his helmet. A crash went through his head, like a gong in Cathay. Darkness and meteors whirled upward.

Gasparo drew his sword. Lucas sprawled on the floor. Djansha wriggled free of his limp embrace. She yanked out his dagger. Gasparo raised his weapon above Lucas’ neck. Djansha pounced. The knife entered Gasparo’s throat.

His blade fell. He pawed at the steel in him. Blood pumped forth, splashing across his hands. He buckled, went on all fours, down on his belly. With one red finger, he traced a cross. The life went out of him.

Djansha said like winter: “You would have killed my lord.” When Lucas sat up, she knelt by him and the tears broke loose.

He held her close. “My darling, my darling.” He shook his head, which ached but was otherwise clear again, and felt the dent in his helmet. She aided him to his feet. He picked up his own sword. For a little while he regarded Gasparo’s body.

“I think we are even now,” he said. “Let us forgive each other, as I hope Moreta forgave us both.”

Turning to Djansha, he kissed her with enormous gentleness. “Dress yourself warmly,” he told her, “then wait here. I’ll come for you soon.”

“But you have been gone so long!”

“Wait, I say. Afterward we’ll have all our lifetimes.”

He left the room and went back along the hall.

The fight was over. The Catalans lay dead among a heavy toll of their enemies. Orio’s jubilant men didn’t care. They still had enough to get their ship home; and so much the more loot for the survivors! Most of them were already at plunder. It was a relief to Lucas that no women were about. En Jaime must have sent them beyond the wall, to the cottages, at the first sign of trouble, and now the victors would not have time to look for them.

Astonishingly, the
rich hom
remained. He sat in a chair, blood dripping from his scalp, staining the fine black clothes. Two pikemen guarded him. Lucas wondered in a dull, exhausted way whether to be glad for him or not.

Orio jerked a thumb at the prisoner. “He was a mucking tough one,” said the captain. “But plainly enough, he’s worth a pile o’ ransom. So the men clubbed him down instead o’ killing him. What d’you think we can get?”

“Nothing,” said Lucas. “He goes free.”

“What? Look here, you--”

“Silence,” said Lucas without emphasis. Orio’s mouth closed.

En Jaime climbed toilsomely to his feet and leaned on the chair back. “No,” he muttered. “I do not yield.”

“There’s no question of surrender, Jaime,” said Lucas. “Take a horse and sword. Go in honor.”

“And afterward?”

“You fought as long as any man could. None can blame you. As for us, we’ll be gone in an hour. I . . . I’ll try to pay you back what I’m robbing.”

The dark head lifted. “You steal nothing, Lucas. My men are fallen, so I their lord have disposition of their treasure, as well as my own. I give it to you, freely, a gift.”

“Oh, Jaime!”

The Catalan advanced unsteadily into the room, walking on blood and among his dead warriors, who stared at him. Lucas held out a timid right hand. En Jaime took it in his own.

“I’ve thought much since you fled, falsely accused by my nation and my Church,” said the
rich hom
. “I kept remembering my vows when first I was made a knight, and then remembering what the Grand Company has done. And now this--We, who made the world afraid, brought low for the sake of a slave girl! I think God is angry.” With a bewildered hurt: “But how did we fail Him?”

Lucas could not bring himself to answer. En Jaime nodded. The madness and the nobleness of Catalonia spoke: “You would say that we were unjust and unmerciful. But do you really believe that nothing more is required of man than . . . than kindness?”

“I do not know,” said Lucas.

“I cannot believe so. And yet I cannot think what else there may be. Everything I imagine seems false. I’m only certain that the truth is not here.”

“How then will you seek it?”

“I know not. Search I must, but search is useless. He will come to me if He chooses. But I don’t think He ever will. I am not worthy, and don’t know how to make myself worthy.”

En Jaime rubbed his eyes. It left a red mask. “No one remains to me,” he said on a thin, rising note of terror. “No one but God, Who will not show Himself.”

He dropped Lucas’ hand and walked from the room, out through the entrance hall and the broken main door. Lucas listened for the sound of hoofs, but there was none. En Jaime had gone from the house on foot.

Orio shivered. “Move along, you scuts,” he barked to his men. “Let’s get loaded and away.”

There was too much death in this place. Lucas went out onto the portico. The wind bit and whistled. Weariness dragged at him. A long way back, he thought; will it be as hurtful to as many as were all the miles which led me here? He leaned on a column and wished he could weep.

A footfall sounded behind him. He turned with the jerkiness of worn-out nerves. Djansha stood there in a woolen gown and cloak.

The clouds were breaking up. Moonlight streamed across her. “I could not wait any longer for you,” she said.

If a man is fortunate, there are a few pure moments in his life. They do not last; the doubts and fears, guilt, loneliness, all the grubby little weaknesses return; but he has had those instants and knows life is joyous.

The wind filled his lungs and blew the ache from his head. A good wind for their voyage. Northward glittered his oldest friend, Polaris, the wander-star. But I am bound the other way, he thought. I am going home.

He took her arm and they walked down toward their ship, the victorious knight and his lady.