Swords From the Sea (25 page)

Peter put his hands behind him and looked away from the Burgundi- an's sword hilt and gold chain.

"The black rogue!"

"Nay-" Thorne shook his head-"rogue he may have been, but brave he was. Now that he is sped it is not honorable in us to miscall him."

Chapter XVII

The Inland Sea

It is written in the chronicles of that reign how the armiger and the Shipman, knowing not whither they should take their course, turned southeast as Durforth's route had been planned.

So it was said of them that the hand of Durforth, which had been ever against them, living, now guided them out of the tayga, the dense forest of the Easterlings. They drove the dogsleds, loaded with trade goods, and Joan made shift to drive Kyrger's reindeer and the sledge on which the wounded Samoyed lay. They took their course from the stars.

And so they left the fires in the sky behind them and came out on a snow plain without track or tree or village. Still Thorne pressed south and east. He would not change his course for any direction that seemed likelier, and because of this they passed through a girdle of hills and found themselves on the shore of a sea that stretched to the horizon.

Its waters were a clear green, unlike the dull gray of the Ice Sea, and for this reason Thorne said they could not be the same.

And following this coast they came to men spearing seals among the ice cakes. Some of these men were Muscovites, but in their number was Master Stanton, gunner of the Edward, who greeted them with a glad outcry.

And from this same Master Stanton they learned what was afterward set down in the chronicle, that when Richard Chancellor parted from the Wardhouse, he held on his course toward the unknown region of the world, aided by the continual light.

Coming to the mouth of what seemed a great bay, he entered and sailed many a league to the south without seeing land again. But they came upon a fishing boat manned by barbarians who were filled with amazement at the great size of his ship.

He entreating them courteously, they made report in the villages of the Muscovites of the arrival of a strange nation of a singular gentleness. Master Chancellor was conducted to a town built on a fair harbor, within wooden walls,*
and was told that this was the bay of St. Nicholas and the sea was the White Sea, which ran far into the dominions of the great prince Ivan.

Master Chancellor departed to seek this prince at his court in Moscow, leaving the Edward at anchor in charge of Burroughs. And so began the trade of Muscovy with the outer world, for it was a land rich in gold and silver and furs. As for Thorne the armiger and Joan Andrews, they fared to the court of Ivan the Terrible and what there befell them is set down in the chronicles for all to see.

But when Kyrger's wound healed he harnessed up his reindeer and journeyed back to the Ice Sea. It was more than he could endure to live within walls, and in the beginning of spring he reached the Wardhouse where Tuon and his Laps had taken up their quarters to watch the possessions of Joan Andrews and to wait whatever would take place.

Kyrger the hunter spread under their eyes the skin of ermecin, the white bear, and squatted down on it, taking full heed of the astonishment of the Laps.

"0 nym tungit," he murmured, "0 my tent companions, since I turned my face from the north star many new fires have taken their place in the gate in the sky. Many men have gone to greet Yulden to whom the three stairways lead."

He pointed to the skin.

"With an arrow my master slew this one. And with the bow that sent the arrow Shatong the shaman was struck down. The spirit that dwells in my master is very powerful. It is not the Reindeer-Being; it is not kin to the bear or the wolf or the eagle."

The listeners held up their hands in bewilderment.

"0, my brothers harken, for this is a very great magic and a thing beyond belief. My master hurries through the forest, looking neither to right nor to left; when he is in trouble he makes a magic with water that burned, and ice put upon a tree; he went against his enemies and the blood feud is atoned.

"In the Town of Wooden Walls he claimed the sinym-the young maiden-for his bride, although there were many warriors of her race who cast their eyes upon her.

"The spirit that dwells in him is that of the khylden. He has run with the snow driver. So in all things it is better, 0 my friends, to follow him than to stand against him."

A black night it was. Mist hanging over the canals, hiding the stars. Damp breath from the lagoons, creeping along the stone walls of Venice-blind walls without eyes of light.

Through the darkness Donald Ban made his way, listening to the warning cry of an unseen boatman, peering at the red blur of a lantern swaying over the black surface of the water. An ungodly night, he thought, shifting his kit to his other shoulder. And a strange city, with canals where the streets should be, and blind walls in the stead of honest doorways.

In all Venice he knew no living soul, having come off a ship that evening with his great sword at his hip, his buckler on his back, and his garments and gear slung over his shoulder in a red velvet caftan that he had taken from a slain Egyptian mameluk. For Donald Ban was home from the wars in the East-finding his way home from the crusades after six years of service.

A dark Scot he was, with candid gray eyes and few words. A brown beard curled on his long chin, and a baron's mantle hung from his wide shoulders. Women looked at him invitingly, but he went his own way as a rule, having found these outland girls even more troublesome than the lasses of the Clan Arran.

In a leather wallet, slung securely from his belt under the mantle, he carried his gleanings of the last six years-a few gold dinars and byzants, mixed with silver coins and a jewel or two. For the present he was in search of a decent lodging for the night where the people spoke good Norman-French and the wine had body to it.

He was having trouble finding such a place. Other men pattered by unseen, their footfalls echoing between the walls-they knew their way about. When he accosted a Venetian the other laid hand to knife, scowl ing, and slipped away; if he spoke to a group in the Norman-French of the armies, they answered in a mocking gabble that sounded like Latin.

"'Tis no priest's Latin, I'm thinking, nor the dog lingo of the Catalan lads. 'Tis fair uncouth."

He had no desire to go back to the stinking deck of the galley, off the riva dei Schliaovni, and by now he doubted if he could retrace his steps to the waterfront. He was standing irresolute on a narrow bridge when two men brushed past him, following a servant with a torch. They were wrapped in cloaks and seemed to be in excellent spirits. Donald Ban fell in behind to take advantage of the light, reasoning that the two gentlemen might well lead him to a wine shop and food.

Instead they passed under an arch and came out in a small square where the great door of a church rose against the darkness. Beside this door a candle flickered under a wall shrine, and beneath the shrine stood a flower girl, resting her basket against her hip. When the two gentlemen passed with their torch she turned her head aside, but she looked up at Donald Ban. Beneath the shawl he caught a glimpse of quick, dark eyes and young lips, and he noticed that she was shivering with the cold.

"Seigneur," she cried, "for God's love buy a flower of me!"

The good Norman-French words brought him to a stop, and he peered into the eyes under the hood. This was no hour for a fair young thing to be hawking in the street.

"Aye," he muttered, "a flower."

Beyond the sea Donald Ban had fallen in with the soft-skinned Syrian girls, and the women of Cairo, who smelled of musk and paint, but not for long years had a slender lass looked up at him with shy eyes and spoken Christian speech. He thought she might be French, adrift like himself in this misty city of gabblers and quarrelers. So instead of taking coppers from the pocket in his mantle, he loosed his wallet to find a silver coin.

"But which one do you wish?" She smiled, thinking that he had such somber eyes, and that she had not beheld the like of him among the young lords of Venice.

He had put down his bundle and was fumbling in the wallet. "Two will I have," he decided. "Aye, yonder red-"

With the words, a thief struck at him. The Scot saw the flash of a knife passing under his hands. A jerk at his wrists, a cry from the girl, and the robber leaped back into the mist, escaping a sweep of Donald's long arm. With him he bore off the wallet. Donald sprang after him-saw his shape vanish into the maw of an alley.

At the alley mouth the Scot turned back reluctantly, knowing that a chase into darkness would earn him no more than a knife between the ribs. The thief had his purse, and Donald had not so much as a silver shilling upon him now to pay for bed or bite.

At the shrine light he found two men standing by his bundle, confronting the girl, and recognized the pair whose torch he had followed hither. One, a sallow youth clad in black velvet, spoke to him in Italian and then in French.

"Eh, Seigneur, the alley birds have flown away with your wallet, but we caught this little dove for you before she could escape into the church."

The girl shrank back against the wall, clutching her basket. "By Our Lady, I swear I know naught of it."

"Par Dex, you swear prettily." The youth in black thrust the shawl from her head and surveyed her idly. "Vettore, here is a rare, sweet handful. I am minded to carry her off to judgment."

The man called Vettore-an older fellow with a scar upon one cheek-laughed and said something under his breath, holding fast the while to the girl's wrist. She stared up at them like a wild thing at the feet of hunters. And Donald, looking from one to the other, made up his mind.

"Nay, let be," he said. "I'm thinking she had no hand i' this stealing."

"And I," the young Italian responded, "think otherwise. I pray thee, Messer Stranger, stand aside. I am Paulo Bragora of the Ca' Doria."

"I said let be, and I shall hold to my word. Neither hurt nor harm hath come to me from this maid, Signor Paulo-so loose her."

"Rather will I send thee to meddle with Satan."

Bragora's hand caught at his sword hilt, and Donald drew his round shield over his head, upon his left arm.

Before the swords could be drawn, Vettore clutched his companion's shoulder and whispered urgently, and as he listened the youth's expression changed.

"You are new come to the city?" he asked. "An Englishman, 'tis like?"

"A Scot," Donald corrected him, "of the Clan Arran that followed the Bruce."

"Eh, well. You are a man to stand your ground, I see well. And what need that we should bare steel for a girl of the night?"

"Then loose her."

With a smile at the Scot's stubbornness, Bragora signed to Vettore to release the girl, and she vanished after one swift birdlike glance up at Donald Ban.

"You are overtrusting, Signor Donal'," Bragora observed, affable again. "Behold, you are robbed by a cutpurse and deserted by this wench. If we cannot restore your purse, perhaps we may find you another. We were looking, Vettore and I, for a bold wight who will not step back at sight of a sword-a bold fellow, see you, who is yet a gentleman. Will you talk with us?"

It seemed to Donald Ban that he had those qualifications. He must have food and a bed, and to get them he might as well serve one man as another.

"Oh, aye," he said, picking up his bundle, "I'll parley wi' ye."

Bragora escorted him around the church through an alley that gave upon a private court. Here he unlocked a narrow, iron-bound door that seemed to be part of a dark wall. Holding the smoldering butt of the torch high, he led the way down a corridor to a leather curtain, where he paused to speak in rapid Italian.

"Good," he explained. "The Signor Zorzi, my honorable uncle, will greet you."

The chamber behind the curtain was lighted only by a great charcoal brazier. An older man sat huddled close to it, his long fingers playing upon the lions' heads that formed the arms of his chair. He did not look up when Donald entered, but as the Scot surveyed the room-the barred embrasure that served for a window and the weapons hung upon the wall-he felt that the old Italian studied him covertly.