Cybele's Secret (22 page)

Duarte rose to his feet. He was a tall man; the cabin seemed too small to accommodate him. “Paula—” he began; then I heard a commotion from the dock outside: shouts, crashing, the sounds of a street brawl of momentous proportions. Duarte took a quick look through the porthole and an instant later was gone, slamming the door behind him. I flung myself across the cabin, wrenching at the handle, but the wretched thing wouldn’t open. He’d locked me in.

I hammered and shouted, but nothing happened. The din from outside was loud enough to drown my pathetic efforts completely. I kept trying anyway, until my hands hurt and my throat ached. I cursed my own stupidity. It had been pointless to come here. Duarte was never going to listen to me. Why should he? He was the sort of man who went straight for what he wanted, not caring at all who fell by the wayside.

The sounds from outside were getting louder—mostly grunts, screams, and oaths in several languages. There was one word I picked out clearly above the rest of it. “Paula!” The voice was familiar.

I clambered onto a stool and looked out the porthole. At the foot of the gangway, a full-scale brawl was in progress. Kicks and blows were meeting flesh, men were flying through the air to land with sickening thuds on the boards of the landing or, in one instance, with a splash in the waters of the Golden Horn. People were bleeding—this was no spur-of-the-moment scrap but brutal and serious combat. At quite some distance stood an official-looking figure, a big, turbaned man with a staff in one hand. He was watching with every appearance of being mightily entertained and made no move to intervene.

It was wrong. It was all wrong. It was the most one-sided contest anyone could imagine. What I could see below me, through the narrow view the porthole offered, was quite clearly a mob attack on one solitary individual. It was amazing that the white-faced, black-haired, rather busy person in the center of it all had managed to keep his feet for so long. His eyes were blazing with determination, his mouth was fixed in a snarl, his clothing was soaked with sweat, and he was using every bit of skill and strength he had to keep the mob at bay. While they maintained their assault, there was no way he could get a foot onto the plank laid from the dock up to the
Esperança
’s deck. There could be only one reason why he had come here. If they killed him, it would be my fault.

“Stoyan!” I shrieked. “Behind you, there!” For I had seen what he could not: the flash of a knife in a man’s hand.

He couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear the scream that built up in me as I waited to see him struck down and trampled beneath the booted feet of the mob. As the weapon rose, ready to stab, something flew through the air to crash onto the heads of two of the attackers and splinter with explosive effect into the general fray. A rain of similar missiles followed. From the deck of the
Esperança,
people were shouting:
“Vinde, por aqui, saltai! Soltai-o, seus filhos de cães!”
Then again, in the tone of a command,
“Saltai! Saltai!”

I was screaming with the best of them by now and pounding my fists on the wall beside the porthole—“Watch out! Duck! Look left!”—as Stoyan whirled and dodged and staggered right on the edge of the dock, his assailants moving like a dragging garment all around him. A hurled stone struck him on the forehead, and a crimson stream began to pour down into his eye, half blinding him. He put up a hand to dash the blood away, and in a sudden flashing movement, someone struck at his arm. He stumbled. “No!” I screamed. “Stoyan, no!” For I could see what might be next, and it froze my heart.

The gangplank was being pulled up; Duarte did not want this unruly crowd on his well-kept ship. A gap of two arms’ lengths opened up between the plank and the dock. Someone on the ship, recognizing belatedly that Stoyan could not understand the crew’s shouts, yelled out in Greek, “Jump! Come on, jump!”

With the hands of several attackers grabbing at his dolman and sash, Stoyan jumped. I saw the leap. The landing was beyond my line of vision. I didn’t hear a splash; but then I probably wouldn’t. The mob was howling for Stoyan’s blood, and the crew of the
Esperança
were shouting imprecations in return. I needed no Portuguese to interpret those; I could guess. Then, from the deck, a command rang out in a voice I recognized. A moment later the ship shuddered and creaked and, to a chorus of angry shouts from the shore, began to edge away from her mooring. Duarte da Costa Aguiar was sailing his ship out of Istanbul with me on board.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. The
Esperança
was heading north up the Bosphorus under full sail. The crew had settled to their various tasks with the ease of well-oiled pieces of machinery, and having finally been liberated by a tongue-tied sailor, I stood on the deck facing Duarte, the wind whipping the folds of the long black garment around my body and tossing my hair into my eyes. “Why didn’t you wait until I was safely ashore before you sailed? And where’s Stoyan?”

“To answer the last question first,” Duarte said, his expression somewhere between amusement and irritation, “your friend is on board and being tended to by one of my crew. He’ll live; his injuries are more spectacular than serious. Why didn’t I wait? It’s bad enough having a hotheaded young woman on my ship, not to speak of her pugnacious bodyguard, without throwing in a brawling mob for good measure. What do I think I’m doing? Taking my ship on the voyage I always intended to make, for perfectly legitimate reasons.”

“Legitimate. I doubt it. Why the rush? Couldn’t you have pulled away from the docks and waited until the crowd dispersed? Then you could have put the two of us back onshore. In case you missed it when I mentioned this before, my father was set upon by thugs this morning and severely beaten. I need to get back before—” I faltered, realizing how this sounded.

“Before he learns that you left him on his sickbed to race out and get yourself in trouble? Before Master Teodor discovers he is not only without his daughter, but has lost his bodyguard as well, thanks to the fellow’s need to chase after that same daughter and bring her to her senses? You are too ready with your accusations, Paula. If you did not want your father worried, you should have stayed at home.”

I swallowed a retort. It was clear to me that, in the matter of the assault on my father, the most likely perpetrator was Duarte or his agent—I did not think he would perform deeds of that kind in person. Hadn’t someone said he always took care to avoid being caught? He wasn’t going to admit it to me, and I’d made a big mistake in ever thinking he might. Now I’d almost got Stoyan killed, though who those men had been and why they had attacked him I could not imagine. I could not blame that on Duarte; his crew had saved Stoyan’s life. I should cut my losses and concentrate on getting us both off the boat and back to Father as quickly as possible. He might still be asleep. He might not need to be told.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said as Duarte shifted restlessly, his eyes on the activities of his crew. “Listen to me! They look as if they can sail the boat pretty well without you. Now tell me, if you’re not fleeing from punishment for what you did, why are you in such a hurry?”

He leaned on the rail, and behind him the shores of the Bosphorus passed, a soft, leafy parade of green banks dotted with the white walls of dwellings. Now a fortress tower…Dear God, we were already passing Rumeli Hisari.

“Duarte,” I said, trying to suppress a hysterical note in my voice, “you must put in to shore and let Stoyan and me get off the ship. We need to go back to Istanbul.”

A wary look had appeared in his dark eyes. “I can’t,” he said.

“You have to!” Now I sounded shrill, but I couldn’t help it. With every moment that passed, we were less likely to be back in the city by nightfall. Father might think I had been beaten and left for dead, as he had been. He might think Stoyan and I had run off together. No, probably not that; he knew both of us too well. But I suspected that would be what everyone else would believe. The news of our disappearance would spread like wildfire through the trading community of the Galata quarter. Father would certainly be distressed and anxious. What if the shock proved fatal to him in his weakened state?

“You have to,” I repeated. “Why would you want to abduct us? We have absolutely nothing to offer you.”

He smiled. It was not the mischievous smile he used when flirting, nor the rapacious one he had turned on the traders of the çar
i, but a smile that seemed genuinely apologetic. He shrugged, gesturing helplessness. “I can’t do it, Paula,” he said. “There are reasons, very good ones, which I will explain to you in due course; that’s if you are prepared to stop shouting at me long enough to hear them. In brief, I believe it’s possible we may be pursued. We must make what speed we can to avoid being overtaken. I hope to stay far enough ahead so we can lose them once we reach the Black Sea.”

“Pursued?” This was not what I had expected. “By whom? And why?” I wondered who else he had injured, what other property he had obtained by devious means, what other innocent folk he had kidnapped.

“Later,” Duarte said. “You were right, my crew can do the job without my interference. But when I put them under exceptional pressure, it seems only right to take my share of the responsibility. It’s not simply a matter of tricky sailing. It’s the need to tolerate passengers on board. I hope you are a quick learner.”

I stared at him, unable to interpret this.

“If all you can offer are insults and false accusations,” Duarte said coolly, “you should keep your mouth shut. My men are loyal. They won’t take kindly to a barrage of invective.”

“I’ll make sure I don’t do it in Portuguese,” I said. “Anything else?”

“My cabin is at your disposal. I’ll move my things elsewhere. Be careful with the door; it has a tendency to stick. Don’t go anywhere else. You can’t use the crew’s facilities for washing and…er…”

“If you stop and set me ashore, you’ll have no need to bother with such embarrassing details, senhor.” My heart shrank at the prospect of spending a night on board while the
Esperança
plowed on northward.

“What are you wearing under that?”

I felt my face grow hot. The question seemed grossly inappropriate.

“Never mind.” Duarte was showing signs of exasperation. “Without the robe, you’ll get cold. And if you keep it on, you won’t be safe on the ladders. Pero, my first mate, will find you some clothing. When he does, don’t argue, put it on. Now you’re to go to the cabin and keep quiet until further notice. Don’t slow me down, Paula, or I’ll throw you over the side as a treat for the fish.”

After a moment I said, “I want to see Stoyan.”

“You will find him in the adjacent cabin, which is Pero’s. Cozy for you. Go on, and I don’t want to see either of you on deck again until you’re called for.”

Stoyan had a dressing on his forehead and another on his left arm, which was in a sling. A sailor with a tattooed chin was tying this neatly at the shoulder when I came in. The man grinned at me and said something in Portuguese. As soon as the knot was fastened, Stoyan stood up, hitting his head on the ceiling, and conveyed by gestures that he and I were to be left alone.

“How could you do that?” he said as soon as the man was out the door. His voice was shaking with fury. “What on earth possessed you?” A moment later he added, “Kyria.”

I had expected him to be angry. I had not expected to be so upset by it. Perhaps it was knowing I was in the wrong that hurt so much. “Are you all right?” I asked him. “Who were those men?”

“That is unimportant. What were you doing, Paula? How could you leave the han on your own?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Truly sorry. If I’d known you were going to come running after me and get yourself half killed, I would have…” I paused. Even that would probably not have stopped me. It had seemed so important to make Duarte see the error of his ways before he traveled out of reach, taking Cybele’s Gift with him. “I had to talk to him, to Senhor Aguiar,” I said. “And it’s nothing to do with falling for his charms. He must be responsible for the attack on my father. He’s got Cybele’s Gift on board, in that cabin through there. He made no attempt to deny it. Father was beaten to stop him from getting to the blue house in time. He was attacked because Duarte knew Father would outbid him if he was allowed to compete fairly.”

He stood there looking at me, lips tight.

“Stoyan, I couldn’t just let this go. I couldn’t let Duarte sail away without accounting for himself. I had to tell him what this meant to us, to me and Father. I was hoping he might see sense.”

“And did he?” Stoyan’s tone was deeply skeptical.

“No. He denied having anything to do with the beating.”

“And here we are on the ship.”

“There’s worse,” I said, reluctant to give him any further reason to be angry with me.

“Tell me. What is worse than doing this to Master Teodor when he is already weak and despondent?”

“Stop it! I feel guilty enough already. I asked Duarte to put in at one of the anchorages on the Bosphorus and let us get off so we could make our way back to the city by road. He said he can’t. Something about pursuers and needing to reach the Black Sea before they catch up. I have no idea who would be interested in following him.”