Act of Faith (15 page)

The journey ground on for days and nights — countless hours — and I swear that sometimes I was asleep in the saddle. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Innocent had dozed off as well, but he kept walking. We cantered when we could, always urged on by the minutes that seemed to slip from our grasp and the miles that stretched ahead of us.

I saw the man in the black hat and cape again and again — at a crossroads, at a water trough, in a tiny riverside town. One night he was sitting by the fire in the front parlour of an inn, when Willem and I arrived rain-drenched and saddle-sore.

As we waited for our supper, I kept my eyes on him.

‘He’s following us,’ I whispered to Willem.

‘Who?’

‘That crow of a man in the cape.’

Willem glanced across at the fireplace. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He was here before us.’

‘I’m telling you —’

‘Enough! I’m hungry. Let’s eat.’

‘But for days that man has been in every village, every inn, we’ve visited.’

‘Of course he has. He’s on the road to Genoa, just like us. Where else would he stay?’

‘It’s not a coincidence,’ I argued. ‘He stares at me. He even has eyes like a crow. Never blinking. Just staring.’

‘He’s probably wondering how you got so ugly. Pass the bread.’

‘You should talk.’ I threw a piece of bread at him and he caught it in one hand and stuffed it into his mouth.

I glanced surreptitiously at the man by the fire. He had taken off his hat to reveal a head of stubbly silver hair to match his beard.

‘He’s minding his own business,’ hissed Willem. ‘It’s you who’s doing all the staring. He probably just thinks you’re weird.’

‘He’s a priest. Look at that cloak.’

‘Half of Europe wears black cloaks,’ said Willem. ‘Including you.’

‘He looks shifty.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘He’s one of them.’

‘Listen …’ He grasped my hands. ‘Stop it. You’re just upsetting yourself — you’re upsetting me, for that matter. People will notice. Calm down.’

‘But —’

‘Hey! Who’s in charge here?’

I now stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’re supposed to do what I say.’

I burst out laughing. ‘Why?’

‘Because I’m a man.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m older than you.’

‘Only just.’

‘The sooner we find Master de Aquila the better,’ Willem muttered, following it with a burst of rude words and turning his attention to his plate.

‘Signora Contarini was right,’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘You are hilarious.’

At least it took my mind off being followed.

But when we stopped at Parma, where there were several inns to choose from, sure enough, we found ourselves sharing a dining room with the Crow in the black cape.

‘All right,’ said Willem, after the man had nodded goodnight to the innkeeper and vanished upstairs. ‘I grant you, it is getting a little spooky now.’

‘Glad you finally believe me.’

‘But he still could be anyone.’

‘He’s a spy from the Inquisition,’ I said.

‘You don’t know that for sure.’

‘There are lots of things I don’t know for sure,’ I snapped. ‘That doesn’t mean they aren’t true.’

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘there’s just no arguing with your logic.’

‘He knows. He can see right through me, Willem, I swear.’

‘I have to admit,’ said Willem slowly, ‘at first I thought you were mad dressing as a boy. But you really are quite convincing.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘You ride like a boy. Somehow, you even manage to walk and talk like one.’

‘I’ve always been a girl in a world of men,’ I said, and my mind slipped back to the evenings around the supper fire with Justinian Jonson and all those faces grinning madly at me. ‘I suppose some of your bad manners must have rubbed off.’

For once, Willem didn’t hit me. His face wrinkled into a soft smile, and we sat there feeling very pleased with our own cunning and with one another.

But the next morning, any illusions I had suffered were smashed in the bright Italian sunshine. I bumped into the man in black in the hallway.

He swept off his hat and bent into a courtly bow. ‘Forgive me,
signorina
,’ he said in Venetian. ‘After you.’

I gasped. ‘I don’t understand,’ I spluttered in a kind of mangled Dutch, like a clumsy foreigner — which was exactly what I was.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I must have mistaken you for someone else.’

I was so flummoxed by being called
signorina
that I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. Instead, I snorted as dismissively as possible and pushed past him.

He smiled.

In a village in the forest, we stopped to water the horses. An elderly ostler offered to rub down their legs and gave them oats from his hand.

‘Seen a group of men ride through here today?’ Willem asked.

‘Yes, five men, riding hard.’ The ostler shook his head in disapproval. ‘Too hard for the horses.’

‘Priests?’

‘I couldn’t say for sure. But one had grey hair and a strange hat. Never seen one like that in these parts.’

I clutched at Willem’s arm. ‘That’s them!’

‘When did they leave?’ he asked, the urgency in his voice unmistakable.

‘This morning — dawn. Trying to get over the mountains by dark.’

‘Which pass would they take?’

‘There’s only one road to take from here — over the Apennines, through the pass, the Crocetta d’Orero.’

‘What’s on the other side?’ I asked.

‘The coast,’ said the old man. ‘Genoa.’

‘Then a ship to anywhere in the world,’ Willem said.

We stared at each other.

‘We have to catch them first,’ I said.

‘Water the horses,’ Willem told the ostler. ‘We leave in an hour.’

‘You can’t go now,’ the man said. ‘You won’t make it over the pass before nightfall.’

‘How far is it?’

The old man paused for a moment. ‘If you start now, you’ll reach the pass. But no further. You can’t stay the night up there, and you can’t ride through it in the dark.’

‘We’ll stop halfway,’ I said, ‘then ride on at first light.’

‘But it might snow.’ He looked genuinely worried. ‘There could be robbers. Or an avalanche.’

‘Or priests on horseback,’ I said.

‘Or crows.’

Willem and I laughed, but not very heartily.

‘That reminds me,’ said Willem. ‘Has anyone else ridden through ahead of us today?’

‘Yes, two more men. Everyone rides through in one day, and then for a week — nothing.’

‘A man in black?’ I asked.

‘Everyone wears black.’

‘You see?’ Willem slapped my arm. ‘That’s what I keep telling you.’

I ignored him. ‘But there were two men?’

‘Yes, two. But not together. First one, nasty, snarly sort of fellow. Then another, charming, gentleman-like, you might say. Black hat.’

We swapped glances.

‘We’d better go.’

Hours later, we left the cover of the forest at last and plodded across a plateau so windy and wild it was as if God had never cast his eyes upon it. The trail led us on, always on, towards a cleft in the mountains that soared into the sky ahead of us.

As we drew closer and climbed higher, we saw snow — far too early for the season — nestled like a cloak on the peaks. It circled in eddies around the horses’ legs, spotted our hair and eyelashes.

It was quiet. Stone quiet. No birdsong or rustling leaves up here, just the clang of horseshoes on bare rock, and the occasional scrabble of gravel as the horses struggled to find sure footing. The path was steep and seemed to wind upwards forever. Near the top, it narrowed; boulders on either side brushed our knees. The earth was carved by the elements into long ridges, layer upon layer of solid rock and bare soil, like one of the confections at Signora Contarini’s banquet. Scraggly bushes and clumps of dry grass clung, improbably, to the cliff. Every so often a river of cascading gravel indicated an old rock fall.

Willem turned in his saddle. ‘We should rest the horses soon, and look for somewhere sheltered to spend the night.’

I nodded. Any moment out of the saddle was precious.

Just in front of us, at the end of the chasm — at last — was sky. The top of the pass. We had mastered the mountain. I glanced up at the sun to see how much of the day was left. Something caught my eye — a movement in the rocks — a flurry.

‘Someone’s here,’ I whispered.

‘Don’t start that again,’ Willem said loudly, as if to cancel out my fear.

‘I saw —’

‘Up here?’ he said. ‘You’re seeing imaginary things — spirits and ghosts. There’s nobody here but us and the eagles.’

I looked again, squinting in the weak sunshine. Nothing. Nowhere for anyone to hide.

‘Maybe it was a rabbit,’ I conceded.

‘What I wouldn’t give for a rabbit,’ Willem groaned. ‘Fried. Or maybe stewed.’

‘Do you have to talk about food every waking moment?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Let’s stop here — it’s as good a place as any.’

I slid out of the saddle and my legs buckled as my feet hit the ground. God only knew how poor Innocent felt. I rummaged in the saddlebag, found him a handful of oats, and took a swig from my water flask. The path was a little wider here, but there was nowhere to sit. All the better: I wasn’t entirely sure that I would be able to stand up again. I patted Innocent’s sweat-flecked neck.

‘We’ve made good time,’ I said.

Now it was Willem’s turn to glance up at the sky. ‘Yes, I think we’ll — hey! What was that?’

I spun around. ‘Did you see something, too?’

But there was no time for him to reply. An almighty crack smashed the silence.

‘Oh, no.’

A rumble. A scattering of stones down the cliff.

‘Run!’

We scrambled into our saddles and I spurred Innocent into movement. He reared up, staggered, and for one sickening second I thought we’d both sprawl to the ground.

Every rock, every stone around us was moving — rushing, splattering and crashing downwards into the pass.

Willem was yards ahead, galloping free of the cloud of dust and deadly rocks, and then I couldn’t see him any more. He yelled my name — I just heard it faintly above the noise — then nothing.

I don’t know who was more scared, Innocent or me. I fought with him for a heartbeat, dragging down on the reins to steady his head, and then, after what felt like a lifetime, we started to move.

Something hit me hard on the forehead.

‘Faster!’ I urged him on.

We were pelted with small stones and fragments of larger boulders, which splintered and crashed as they fell. Innocent dodged around the rocks that rolled into his path, sure now that the best way out of this nightmare was forward. I gave him his head — it was probably clearer than mine. There was blood in my eyes, on his shoulder.

We fled down the mountainside, followed by a storm cloud of dust.

I caught up with Willem halfway down the trail. He lay with his face half-submerged in a trickle of spring water that dribbled in a clear stream out of the rocks and across his mouth as he gulped. The rest of him was dusted in thick, brown dirt. He was the same
colour as the mountain, as were his horse and luggage — and, no doubt, me. We were both mountain-brown, except for Willem’s blue eyes, a dribble of blood in his hair, and a thin strip of skin across his face, washed a clean pink.

He hardly bothered to look up at me. ‘You took long enough.’

I wondered if I could persuade Innocent to kick him.

‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ I said, still trying to catch my breath.

‘Why should I always wait for you? Knew you’d be all right.’

‘Someone tried to kill us,’ I said.

‘Don’t be absurd,’ he snapped.

‘You saw it — you know you did!’

‘Saw what?’

I hesitated. ‘I don’t know — a movement — someone ducking out of sight.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘It’s all ridiculous, but it’s still happening.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ He shook his head so hard that a dust cloud formed around his hair. ‘I can’t.’

Then I realised he was trembling. All over.

He was lying down because he’d been unable to stand up, or stay in the saddle, a moment longer. He couldn’t have stopped to wait for me; he couldn’t help leaving me behind.

Terror had overtaken him.

I knew the feeling well — that sickening lurch of the guts, the rush of madness, the blood-draining panic that left you unsure if you should run and hide or just fall dead where you stood. Willem had run.

But he had never run before, no matter how frightening the world.

And now he lay there, shaking and ashamed and covered in dust.

I flung myself down beside him in the dirt. ‘I thought we were going to die,’ I said.

‘Don’t be stupid. Just a few rocks.’

‘Really. I was scared.’

‘You’re a girl.’

‘Anyone can be scared.’

‘Shut up.’

So I did.

I probably should have patted his hand or stroked his hair or done something else reassuring, but it seemed wrong. So I just lay next to him in the dirt and let the side of my boot rest against his.

We slept that night in the shadow of the mountains, and woke well after dawn to find the Mediterranean Sea shimmering before us and, at our feet, Genoa.

It wasn’t far. Before long, we were cresting a hill and looking out over the city and its famous harbour. A strong breeze helped a fat galleon under full sail tack out to sea.

‘If he’s already on a ship, we are lost,’ said Willem.

‘We are never lost,’ I retorted, but my mind warned me he was probably right. ‘We’ll simply get on the very next ship and follow them.’

‘I thought you had sworn an oath never to set foot on another ship?’

‘Please, this is not the best time to remind me.’

‘Women are so fickle.’

‘Come on!’

I dug my heels into Innocent’s rump and we clattered down the hill and into the city of my ancestors.

Even though my mother was born in Genoa, my father had never spoken of the city; for him, it was a place of sorrow. Somewhere here there might be her — my — cousins, aunts and uncles, family I’d never known. But there was no time to find them now.