Swords From the Sea (57 page)

"Nay, Dominic," she said gravely, "all food does not belong to you."

Then she caught her breath and cried out. The dog had heard the man behind them, and whirled with a growl to leap at the stranger.

The man carried no weapon or stick, and as the dog sprang he stepped aside. Swinging down his arm, he caught the hound by the scruff of the neck and held him for a second, kicking and snarling. "It seems," he observed, "this Dominic needs cooling." And he swung the hound into the pool by the rock.

As he did so, the hawk screamed and flew off. The hound, Dominic, emerged from the water, surprised but still intent upon the stranger. This time the girl caught him and held him firmly by the collar. Whereupon Dominic did what any other dog would do-he growled heartily, and being still held passive, he shook himself vigorously from one end to the other. And this wet the girl's white-linen garments.

"I grieve," said the stranger, "for your dress, Damsel. You should not have held the hound."

"If I did not," she cried indignantly, "he would tear your flesh, for that is his way with vagabonds."

"Does he so with the guests of the castle?"

The girl had been startled and spattered with water, and now she felt angered by the calm voice of this wayfarer, who wore nothing but tatters streaked with salt and dark with more ominous stains.

"Dominic," she responded, "knows well, as I do, that you are no guest of Rocafort."

"Still," he smiled, "I shall be welcomed in the hall."

"By whom?"

"By the lord of the island. I know not his name."

"Well, he is Sir John Rocafort, and I am his daughter. It seems to me you are too sure of yourself. What man are you?"

The stranger hesitated briefly. "I am Andrea Doria."

"The Rais Doria-the great corsair?"

The girl looked at him, amazed. All her years she had lived on this island, seeing no other men than the Arabs and soldiers, and the few seamen who visited the port at need. From them all she had heard tales of Rais Doria, and he had become the hero of her dreams.

"Are you the knight who turned sea rover and harried the Turks from these waters-aye, and took the treasure ship of the Sultan of Cairo?"

"I am Doria."

She flushed, rising to her feet to look into his eyes. They were quiet as the sea itself, and there was a fire in them she could not endure. She did not know how fair she seemed to this man. Because she scorned him she wished to hurt him.

"Oh, we are honored in Rocafort." She bent her head before him. "Only tell me, Messer Andrea, pray, why did you not name yourself the Duke of Austria or even the Emperor?"

At this mockery the wanderer stiffened. Andrea Doria had a great pride in him, and now this pride was touched.

"Because," she cried, "you chose a dead man's name. I have heard how Doria was caught in his ship by the Turkish galleys and cut into pieces and thrown into the sea."

"They did that to my men," said the corsair grimly. "But they were taking me to the Sultan when I escaped in an Arab's boat."

To the girl, who knew so little of the world, this seemed a stupid lie. This tall wayfarer, who had not even a sword, sought the welcome due to a matchless champion.

Her eyes brightened mischievously. Here was something to atone for a wetting. "Have you a token upon you, Messer Andrea?" she asked blithely. "A seal ring?"

"They left me naught but-" he saw the glint of laughter in her eyes and closed his lips. "If you would have a token, loose the hound. The brute knows by now I am no runagate rogue-if you do not."

She let go the dog's collar, and Dominic advanced stiffly at first, but after sniffing round Doria's legs he wagged his tail idly and sat down.

"How well, Messer Andrea," she said demurely, "you know dogs! Now, what is to be the next test, sir?"

"Sir John-you take me to your father?"

Aye, dogs he knew, and men and the handling of ships, but not women. Moodily he watched her going before him up the path. How lightly her red slippers moved, and how the sun shone upon the tangle of her fair hair! He had not seen a gentle girl of his own kind for years.

The maid of Rocafort was merry in her mind. She no longer thought of the great corsair. Here was a stubborn, frowning giant who tried so clumsily to deceive her. She meditated a second test, and when they entered the castle yard she clapped her hands, summoning a passing steward. After speaking to him briefly, she turned to Doria.

"Now, I must change my dress, Messer Andrea. But this man will set meat and wine before you, bidding you welcome to Rocafort."

She tripped away, and Doria, standing in the sun, was aware that heads appeared in the embrasures of the shadowed wall to stare at him. After a moment the steward emerged, bowing low. He ushered the stranger through a passage into a stone chamber, where a plate of food had been set on a table, and Doria, glancing at the smoke-blackened walls and the smiling Arab women working among the pots and pans, stopped short. This was the kitchen, and the solitary plate on the table held only broken bread and stew.

"By the hide of the sacred boar," he muttered, "would you have me break a week's hunger on scullery fare?"

And he thrust the plate to Dominic, who had followed them in.

"Where's Sir John," he demanded, "who welcomes his guests in this fashion?"

"He-he is not to be seen," the steward answered uncertainly.

Doria rubbed his chin. A strange household, but even so he must sleep. After his ordeal at sea, drowsiness beset him like the torment. Paying no heed to the cup that stood upon the table, he seized the great flood of wine and drank, tilting it higher and higher, while the servants stared. When it was empty he set it down with a crash.

"Now take me to a bed," he said briefly.

This the steward hesitated to do. He was imagining vividly the effect of so much wine at a draft upon a man of the stranger's size, and so he almost ran up the steps of a tower to throw open a narrow door. Doria found himself in a clean, sunlit chamber, and he flung himself down on the canopy bed. With his arm across his eyes, he was breathing deep in a moment. The servant tiptoed from the chamber, closing the heavy door carefully.

Then he sought out an iron bar and fitted it into holes in the solid stonework outside the door.

"And so," the girl said, "he would not sup or sip in the kitchen?"

"I made it ready, Mistress Marguerite," explained the steward, "as you bade me. Aye, he threw the food to the dog, but he did more than sip, for he downed a flagon of Cyprian at a breath, and now he lies on his back drunk as Fulk the Bowman at Candlemas."

This the steward imagined to be the case, and he did not add that he had barred the tall stranger in the tower room.

"What say you, Master Ricard?" Marguerite turned to the massive old swordsman, who was captain of the men-at-arms, and so had the castle in his charge during the absence of its lord, Sir John.

"Let him sleep off the wine," responded the soldier bluntly; "then will I talk with him. By the saints, Messer Andrea Doria was a woundy rover of the sea, serving no king or lord as I have heard, but still he was a bold and cunning gentleman. Nay, now that he lies in pieces at the sea's hottom-severed in such fashion by an infidel sword-'tis a shameful thing that a wandering boaster should take his name."

"'Tis a sinful thing," echoed the steward. "Look 'ee, Mistress Marguerite, there is a Venetian galley putting in. Let Master Ricard take this lying knave in hand and put him aboard the galley. Yonder men of Saint Mark are ever greedy of rowers for the benches. They will take him without ado, and so the matter will be at an end."

Marguerite looked thoughtful. Her two advisers having disparaged the stranger, she began to consider him more kindly. Ungainly he might be, yet he was no fool. She looked upon him as her prize, and wondered what he might prove to be.

"Nay," she answered, "my father would not wish us to hand a castaway to the galleys. Give him proper garments, Pietro, and when the wine is out of his head bring him down to supper with us."

She had greeted this tall man as a vagabond; now she would try him as a gentleman. "What," she wondered aloud, "if he is Andrea Doria after all?"

Master Ricard crossed himself. "May the Sieur Diett forbid! 'Tis true the sea gives up its dead at times-"

"Blessed Mary, aid us!" Pietro's jaw dropped. "He-he dripped water at first, and he had stains of blood upon him, and he had a look as-as of one walking in his sleep!"

"Now out upon it, Pietro!" The girl laughed. "Would a spirit heave Dominic through the air or drink a flagon down? Do as I bid thee." And she ran off to her chamber, clapping her hands for the tiring maid. She would put on the red-damask dress and headband with the embroidered silk girdle.

Pietro, however, did not go up to the tower. Dusk was falling, and he lingered in the hall, lighting the candles and chattering, until Ricard, who was growing hungry, growled at him.

"Cease thy mouthing and go up! If he be indeed the ghost of Doria thou canst make certain by looking under his garments. He will bear red lines upon his skin where he was hacked into quarters."

Vigorously Pietro shook his head. "I have seen enough as it is. He would touch no food, and bears neither headgear nor sword nor pouch-which humans are wont to have."

"Wilt disobey thy lady?"

"It is no part of my duty," the steward said with dignity, "to tend a ghost."

"He is naught but a vagabond."

"Then 'tis your duty to handle him, Master Ricard. I've heard tell that if you take a sword with a cross upon its hilt and thrust it into the floor by a sleeping spirit, the fiend will slide down it and vanish."

"Well, that may be." The soldier rubbed his shaven head. "But look 'ee, Pietro. I'll need a light, so thou must bear me up a candle."

"Listen!" cried the steward. The candle in his hand began to shake and scatter its grease. "Did you hear-"

Ricard heard. Through the twilight came a windy shout. "Doria! Doria! Yield to the steel!"

"'Tis his cry!" Peering at each other, they breathed heavily. A dog howled suddenly. Feet pattered across the yard. Near them in the darkness steel clashed.

"Ho!" roared Ricard. "Arms! We are beset."

Andrea Doria slept the sleep of exhaustion-he who would waken otherwise at a whisper. When the clamor pierced his tower room he sat up to stare into darkness. He heard his name shouted and his war cry. Then the unmistakable clash of weapons brought him stumbling to his feet.

For a moment he racked his brains. Then he felt for the wall and swept it with his hands to find the door. Lifting the latch, he thrust at it, then heaved his shoulder against it. When he heard iron grate against stone and knew it to be heavily barred, he crashed his foot against it, his deep voice roaring.

"Open, ye louts!"

No one heeded him. After searching in vain for another door, he shrugged in resignation and went to the embrasure to listen. Men were running below him, and at times he caught the flare of a torch against walls. Some women began wailing. In a few moments the tumult died down, except for the cries of the women.

Doria returned to the door, pounding upon it methodically. After a while he saw light against the crack, and the bar was taken down. An Arab serving woman stood in the hall with a lantern.

"What hath come upon this place?" he asked in her speech.

"Y'allah! Calamity!" She tore at her hair fiercely. "The anger of God-"

He took the lantern from her and went down the winding stair cautiously. At the foot a man crouched, coiled up like a dog. Doria surveyed him and recognized Pietro's jacket. "What is the fighting?" he asked.

Pietro glanced up with agonized eyes and howled. Leaping to his feet, he vanished into the darkness. Doria thought that he conducted himself like a man who saw a ghost.

Going into the hall, the corsair glanced warily to right and left. Candles flickered on the long table, set with silver dishes. Against the table leaned old Ricard, his head clasped in his hands. Through his fingers blood trickled.

"They have taken Mistress Marguerite," he muttered. "Look!"

He seemed dazed as he clutched Doria's arm and crossed the hall unsteadily to a dark corridor. Here he stumbled over a carcass and bent down to feel of it. The hound Dominic lay dead of a dozen wounds. "Ah, Sieur Dieu!" Ricard muttered. "This hound hath fallen in his duty-and I live."

Pushing forward into a lighted chamber, the two men saw it to be empty, except for an Arab serving maid who lay moaning on the floor bleeding from a cut across the face. Ricard clutched her shoulder. "Speak thou," he urged. "What befell thy lady?"

"Like the wind they came," she screamed. "Pietro, the dog, brought them with a knife held at his throat. They snatched her up and like the wind they went."

Doria saw that the embroidered covers of the chests had not been disturbed. The girl's gold headband lay on the bed, beside her white-linen dress that Dominic had soiled. So, the raiders had not lingered to plunder. They had sought only the girl. "What men were they?" he demanded of the wounded captain.

But Ricard only muttered brokenly. Sir John, the lord of Rocafort, had no enemies who would strike at him thus. Sir John was away on a journey with the best of the men-at-arms. The raiders had rushed the courtyard, knocking down all who stood in their way. "'Twas Andrea Doria," he said, "and his devils. Now they are clear of the castle with Mistress-"

"Man," cried the corsair, "Doria's men are fish bait beneath the sea. They are dead, or chained to galley oars. Would Doria use steel on serving wenches or ravish a girl like yours?"

"Living or dead, I heard their war shout. And-and I mind that one calling himself Andrea Doria came spying upon my lady this day."

"The devil!" Doria stared at the soldier blankly. Himself, he knew no more of this raid than dead Dominic. He had been asleep, locked in the tower room. But he was Andrea Doria, and Pietro at least knew it-and now he was loose, prowling about the castle. So they might well think he had a hand in this spoiling.

A sound of distant shouting came through the wide window, and Doria strode over to it. Beyond an outer wall a band of men some two dozen strong were making toward the road that led down to the bay, far below. They looked like seamen, well armed. They had torches to light the way, and Doria caught a glimpse of a girl's red dress between two of them.