Rogue Sword (21 page)

Weariness surged downward through Lucas. He did not fall truly asleep, but he dozed, two minutes nodding and one minute awake. Nightmarish visions harried him.

That ended about noon. Peering back toward hidden Gallipoli, he saw sunlight flash on corselets. The' day was clear and chill, with a breeze from the northeast. Across miles he discerned the antlike riders. They moved straight overland as he had; yes, Catalans beyond a doubt, and what could they be searching for except him?

What were those dots crawling just ahead of the troop?

The wind brought him an answer. At this distance it was the ghostliest murmur. He knew not if he heard it with his ears or with his soul. But the knowledge stabbed him.

Hounds!

The hunters had gone back to the city and obtained hounds.

Lucas was down from the tree, sprinting across the field, before he noticed how he had skinned hands and thighs. Only when he had broken through a hedge did he think how plain a trail he was leaving.

He forced himself toward coolness, eased his breath, pressed elbows against sides and slowed his dash to a long, swinging trot. His fear whetted his senses as he considered the. lay of the land, hues of yellow and brown and faded green. A brook might run yonder . . . no? . . . well, this downslope afforded a quick way to the strait. If need be, he could swim--

Thirst crowded out all else. His tongue was a block of wood. If he did not drink soon, he would fall down unconscious.

A cleft in the hills opened before him. A single poor cottage lay at its near end, the remnant of a hamlet which otherwise was sooted wall stumps and sour ash heaps. The door stood closed and the single window shuttered, but smoke curled from the sod roof.

Lucas halted and knocked. There was no answer. “Hallo!” he croaked in Greek. “Where’s your well?”

“At the rear,” called a woman’s frightened voice. Lucas found it behind a plane tree which overshadowed the earthen hovel.

“My thanks,” he said, when he had drawn a bucketful and slaked himself as much as he dared.

“If ... if you would thank me . . . then go,” she stammered from within.

He tried the door. Bolted, of course. “Give me a loaf of bread and I’ll ask God’s blessing for you,” he said. “The Franks are after me.”

“Go!” she shrieked. “Isn’t it enough they’ve burned the other houses and dragged my kin off to the slave marts? Would you bring them down on me and my baby too? Go!”

More loudly down the wind came the clamor of the hounds.

Lucas’ eyes went from the well to the tree to the house, and on along the cleft. Its farther end opened on a zigzag path which must lead to the water. This had been a settlement of tenants, who worked the plowland and did some fishing. Evidently a few survivors who had hidden from the first Catalan onrush had crept back to resume a furtive life. They dwelt widely apart, lest they draw a fresh raid by their numbers. This woman and her child were quite alone here, meeting the others only to till the soil. At night?

“I’ll go,” said Lucas.

“The saints be with you,” she sobbed beyond the door. “If I let you in, the Franks would kill us all. I have a baby. They caught my husband--”

He bounded off, down the path to a landing slip and shed under the cliffs. The only other trace of life was a gull, wheeling above empty waters.

Lucas turned at the shoreline and retraced his steps upward. Now he must act swiftly. He need not climb the trunk of the plane tree, leaving his scent on the bark; a limb drooped low enough for him to catch. He chinned himself onto it, worked his way upward, and sprang across to the roof. At the vent’s edge he hooked fingers in the sod and lowered himself into choking, stinging smoke. A tiny fire burned immediately beneath. He swung like a bell clapper, let go, thudded to a dirt floor, and whipped about with the knife in his hand.

The woman screamed. She was young, he saw, and must have been pretty in better days. Even gaunted by hunger, in a tattered black dress, she was not ill looking. The hut was single-roomed, gloomy, bare of all except the rudest furnishings. An infant lay in a cradle.

“Be still!” hissed Lucas. “No harm will come to you. Tell the Catalans I went on when you refused me admittance.” She snatched up the baby. Her wail gurgled to silence. “That’s better,” said Lucas. He found a heel of stale bread and began devouring it.

Horses clattered hoofs, metal rang, dogs bayed. A voice shouted, “Open up in there!”

“Ah, no,” moaned the woman. “I dare not. I ... I am alone--”

“Open up or I’ll beat your door in! We’re trailing a sorcerer. He came to this threshold.”

“Don’t argue in that Greek pig-lingo, Simon,” said another man, speaking Catalonian. “Break in and we’ll see.” Lasciviously: “The woman might be worth the trouble by herself.”

“With a warlock abroad?” snorted Simon. “Are you mad?”

“S-s-s-someone came here,” the woman chattered. “He asked me ... for water ... he said the F-f-franks were pursuing him. ... I didn’t let him in.”

The hounds, which had been questing over the ground, broke into a full-throated belling. “This way!” called a soldier. “He went down yonder trail!”

Simon cursed. “No doubt the wretch has swum off, meaning to come ashore elsewhere. Now we must cast up and down the clifftops all day, trying to pick up his scent again. Come!”

The noise dwindled into silence.

Lucas sat down, leaning his back against the wall. “I don’t think they’ll return this way,” he said. “Of course, now they know you’re here, you’d best find another dwelling. I’m sorry about that, but need forced me.”

Light seeped through the smokehole, down onto the woman. Her face was shiny with sweat. “When will you go?” she pleaded.

“After dark. No harm shall come to you meanwhile.” He fumbled at his belt. “Oh, bah! I wanted to pay for my lodging and the trouble I’ve caused, but now I remember they took my purse as well as my sword.” He attempted a smile. “You must be repaid, then, in thanks and prayers.” She watched him mutely, trembling. He found water in a jug and washed the worst filth off his exposed skin. “I’ll not dismay your Eastern sensibilities by taking a real bath,” he said. “Ahhh!” He lay down on the floor. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t come near me. I might wake in a panic, stabbing with this knife in my hand. But otherwise, be not afraid. I’m much too weary to harm anything fiercer than a cockroach.”

His eyelids drooped.

“Are you really a magician?” she asked.

“Eh?” He jittered awake. “What? A wizard? Oh, God, no. A canard invented by my enemies. If I had diabolic powers, I’d not be here!”

“I thought so,” she said bitterly.

After a while, rousing him again from the edge of sleep: “You must know how things are in the world. Do you expect the Turks will conquer this land? Each night since they took Nicholas away, half a year ago, each night I’ve prayed the Turks will come.”

“I suppose they will someday,” he mumbled.

“I’d gladly be a Turk. We used to hear from men who’d been across the strait, in Anatolia, not all Turks are bad. They leave Christians in peace. Only taxing them, I hear. Less tax than we pay to an Emperor who can’t even protect us! But I would be a real Turk. I would raise my son to fight for Mohammed. How else will I ever get revenge on the Franks?”

“Yes, yes. Now, I beg you of your mercy, I’m three parts dead and one part sick. Let me sleep! “

He awoke much later. Dusk hung blue in the smokehole. The infant slumbered. The woman squatted over the fire, stirring a pot. Lucas’ body was one lump of stiffness and pain. But after he had exercised and drunk half a gallon of water, he began to feel a little like himself.

“That stew smells good,” he said wistfully.

“You swore you wouldn’t harm me,” she said. “I can barely make milk for Doukas. Would .you rob me of the means?”

“No.” He sighed. “Give me another hour and I’ll be on my way.”

She looked at him closely. “Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps to Maditos.”

“They take no one in. They want to keep their supplies against a siege. I tried.”

He lacked heart to tell her he might have a special entree. “Have you any suggestions?”

“Where would you like to go?”

He thought about it. “West and south,” he decided. “I have a friend on Cyprus who might give me some employment. But I fear that’s too long a swim.”

The dark head cocked, studying him. “My father once visited Cyprus. They have Latin kings, don’t they? He said the Greeks there are oppressed. But surely no worse there than here, today. Do you know?”

“I don’t suppose one is set upon and ravished, or killed, or sold as a slave. More than that I can’t say.”

“What is your name?” she asked abruptly.

“Lucas. And you?”

“Xenia.” She stirred the pot with more energy than was needed. All at once, rising and handing him a bowl: “I know where a boat is hidden. Could you sail it alone, with me to help a little?”

Joy sprang in him, but he answered cautiously, “The autumn storms will soon be upon us.”

“If we sink,” she said, “have we lost very much? I often thought of taking the boat myself, but I could never rig the mast. None of the few people left hereabouts could handle a boat of that size. All our men and youths are gone. Only a few women and aged ones are left. So I kept my knowledge secret, always hoping--”

“Given your own food supplies to start with.” he said, “I think we might catch enough fish to keep alive. I’m a fisher lad myself.”

“Oh, blessed Mother Mary! That I should be granted this!”

Having slept so much already, he tossed wakeful after dark. Sometime toward midnight, he heard a rustling from Xenia’s pallet. He sat up. By the last light of the banked fire, he saw her beckon him and crept across the floor.

The thin arms closed around his neck. “Lucas,” she cried softly. “The world is such a terrible place. Help me forget.”

On the slopes of the Troodos Mountains, along a road which wound red and dusty among pines, now and again opening on a wide view of peaks, plains, hills whose vineyards and orchards were blurred by distance into shadings of autumn color, Lucas fell in with a band of muleteers. They were bringing wood down to Limasol, and glad of a stranger’s company.

“What may your business be?” asked the leader, a burly black-whiskered man called Petros. “Who’s your master?”

“None,” said Lucas.

They looked so shocked that he hastened to add: “Oh, I’m no outlaw.” Not on Cyprus, he thought, and then, wryly: Not yet. “I came here in search of work.”

“Hm.” Petros scratched his head. “You’ve not found so good a place, then. Some Frankish lord may well lay hands on you as a masterless man and make you a slave in all but name.”

Lucas scowled. This was not the first time he had heard from Cypriotes of the harshness under which they lived. The island was rich, a crossroads of trade, mild of climate and beautiful to behold. But it was also the last remnant of the Crusader kingdoms. The French dynasty of Lusignan and their barons ruled with high-handedness, exacerbated by the fact that the serfs, peasants, and workmen under them were Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians. The native hierarchy had been made subject to a Roman archbishop; their churches were small and poor, deliberately made inconspicuous, and the life of the people followed the same pattern.

By contrast to their brethren under the Catalans, or even under the Empire, the Cypriotes were fortunate. But it was only the difference between slaughterhouse and shearing shed.

God of justice, thought Lucas, have You brought the Turk down on us because we forgot to honor our fellow Christian?

“Did you hear what I said?” asked Petros impatiently.

Lucas started out of reverie. He was glad to bring his mind back to the chilly sweet air under the pines. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. I knew that danger. But I’m not afraid of their bailiffs. Not after eluding so many others.”

“How so?” The nearer men edged closer, eager for any story that would break the tedium of their lives. Then, as the mules began lagging and straying, they returned to apply the whip. Oaths rolled richly through the forest shadows.

“I fled from Gallipoli peninsula,” Lucas said. Those who could hear him looked rather blank. Only the dimmest rumors of the Grand Company had reached these folk, rooted like plants to their patches of soil. Few of them even knew the geography beyond this island; it was a wide, vague world, filled with heathen, monsters, and Franks. Better stay safe at home! Lucas spent so much time explaining matters known to any Venetian sailor that he had little left for his own adventures.

That suited him. He had to leave out all the truth about himself anyhow, posing as a common Byzantine fisherman, lest he start gossip which would draw unwelcome attention. The simple fact of his Latin father might have cost him the friendship of these men.

What he could tell was picturesque enough in retrospect, though it had been miserable while it happened. Xenia’s shallop was too big for him to row. Sculling, he could barely move it along. They were therefore dependent on sail, and the lateen rig made heavy labor for a single man who must also take the steering oar. The woman was too frail to help, and preoccupied with her infant, which sickened horribly at first.

The lack of a periplus added hundreds of miles. Once they had gotten through the narrows, at night, they had to pass among the Dodecanese, with no other guide than the Asiatic shore itself. Often they lost this, when weather or the sight of a ship (which in the Aegean Sea, where all government had failed, was likely a pirate and certainly not a friend) drove them west. Then Lucas beat back as well as he could, inquiring at dagger point of lonely islanders where he was. He took only as much food from them as he believed they could spare, and even so he cursed himself. But the thin crying of the child gave him no freedom in that matter. His trolling for fish had not proved very successful.

He did not even want to remember the gales they encountered.

Toward the end, though, luck turned. The last few days brought slow but steady airs, pushing them east under a mild sun and a big yellow moon. He had robbed a cask of salt pork and another of wine. An occasional pilchard on the hooks helped fill shrunken bellies. Doukas became less fretful, gained weight, crowed at the sea birds and went quietly to sleep on his mother’s breast. Beyond the archipelago, this late in the year, they were not frightened by other vessels. At night, moonglow on the water, land hazy and unreal to larboard, a thousand stars, the lapping and swirling of wavelets under the bows ... it had been sweet.