Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  Alejandro has come to Venice a few times on far happier missions than me. We cruise around the city in a gondola, from which he takes me around the old city. We eventually dismount to join the crowds seeing the sights. I pretend I’ve never seen these before; I haven’t at least from this level.

  He insists on taking me to St. Mark’s Basilica. I’ve never spent much time here, given my hatred of the pope and his Church, which is centered a few hundred miles south of here. For Alejandro’s sake I try not to show any reluctance to this. He stops at a pair of magnificent bronze horses that make me think of young David and his love for the animals. “These were returned not long ago from your country,” Alejandro says.

  The interior of the church is so gorgeous that even a nonbeliever like me is awed by it. I stare up at the mosaics lined with gold, unable to contain my wonder at this. Alejandro puts an arm around my waist to pull him close. Apparently the Christian god has no problem with an adulterer bringing his lover into the church as nothing happens to us as we walk around.

  We stop to have coffee at a café, Alejandro taking his watch from his pocket repeatedly to check it. “You in a hurry?” I ask him.

  “I’ve arranged something special for you,” he says.

  “I don’t need anything special,” I tell him. “Just you.”

  “Ah, but this is a tradition in Venice.”

  “What is?”

  “You’ll have to wait and find out,” he says with a wink. He pays for our coffees and then takes my hand to walk me over to another gondola. Alejandro whispers something to the gondolier in Italian that I can’t understand without using a spell.

  We sit in the front of the gondola, me resting my head on Alejandro’s shoulder. With him is the only time that I’m ever comfortable being a traditional woman, in letting someone else take care of me. He strokes my hair, which I’ve kept loose because I know Alejandro likes it that way; he says that symbolizes my untamed spirit that he fell in love with years ago.

  The gondolier mutters something to Alejandro in Italian. He says something sharp in reply. Ahead I see there are already a pair of gondolas approaching the enclosed bridge between the old prisons and the interrogation rooms of the Doge’s Palace. This bridge is called the Ponte dei Sospiri or later as the “Bridge of Sighs.” I probably could have walked the interior of the bridge if any authorities in Venice had ever caught me scrambling around the city and peeping into people’s windows.

  “What are we doing here?” I ask Alejandro.

  “It’s a local superstition that if you kiss beneath the bridge at sunset, your love will last forever,” he says.

  “Did you kiss Aggie here?”

  “No, but I want to kiss you here.”

  The gondolier finds some space for us to park beneath the bridge. Though I know I shouldn’t, I turn around to face Alejandro. As the sun sets, we each lean forward to kiss. It’s a chaster kiss than we usually share, due to the presence of the gondolier and other lovers nearby.

  We save the real kisses for later, back in our hotel room. Alejandro insists on carrying me over the threshold as if we’re married; indeed, he told the hotel manager that we’re newlyweds. I play along with this, reveling in the idea of being married to Alejandro, even if it’s only temporarily.

  That is until he sets me down on the bed and says, “What would you like to do now, Mrs. Chiostro?”

  I shiver as if he’s dumped a bucket of cold water on me. “Don’t call me that.”

  “But that’s what you are—at least here.”

  “Agnes is Mrs. Chiostro.” I roll over, turning away from him. “She’s your real wife. All I can do is pretend.”

  He sits down on the bed putting a hand on my back. “Don’t cry, Mademoiselle Sylvia. I can’t bear to see you cry.”

  I wipe the tears from my eyes before I roll over to face him. “How long are we going to go on like this? It’s been six years already. Shouldn’t we tell Agnes?”

  “Is that what you want? You know how much that would hurt her.”

  “But we can’t go on sneaking around like this, can we?”

  He smiles at me, always having an answer to deflect my concerns. “What does it matter so long as we are together?” We kiss far more passionately than beneath the bridge and all of my doubts melt away.

  We fuck twice that night. I’ve gotten far more adept that this since that first clumsy time in the forest. Alejandro and I have experienced each other enough that I know what he likes and vice versa. We’ve become able to make the experience last longer, drawing it out for nearly an hour before I finally come, unable to contain a scream that echoes off the vaulted ceiling of the room. As always happens, Alejandro comes a few moments later, his eyes looking into mine.

  We part the next morning. Alejandro gives me a deep kiss in an alley, so deep that it takes my breath away. I’m still gasping for air when he says goodbye. He brushes the hair away from my face so he can look me in the eye. “I’ll be in Naples in three weeks. Can you meet me there?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” I would meet him anywhere at all, even in the bowels of Hell.

  “Good.” With another much shorter kiss, he leaves me there. I have to watch from a bridge as he boards his ship so none of his crew see us together. It’s not likely they would be able to tell Aggie, but it’s because we haven’t taken such chances that we’ve been able to keep up our affair for so long.

  I wait until his ship pulls away before I go back to the alley to vanish myself back to Edinburgh to begin counting the days until I can meet him in Naples.

  ***

  Sitting on the bags of grain, I bury my face in my hands. That must have been when it happened. Really it was just a matter of time. It should have happened years ago with the way we made love, always so recklessly.

  I’m still in this position when the buyers show up for our meeting. Like that long ago Frenchman at the start of the Revolution, they don’t realize that they’re supposed to be dealing with a woman. “You, woman, this is not a place for sitting,” one of them says in Arabic.

  I look up at this and wipe the tears from my eyes. “You’re the ones who want to buy my guns?” I ask them in the same language.

  “Your guns?”

  “That’s right. If you have a problem with that, I can take them elsewhere. Maybe the French legionnaires would like them.”

  They confer with each other for a few moments. In the end it’s like Connor said: people will buy from anyone if they’re desperate enough—even a woman. Being Arabs and in a marketplace they want to haggle; since I have even less patience than usual, I pull my pistol out and fire it over their heads. They throw themselves to the ground while nearby there’s the sound of shouting. “Take it or leave it,” I tell them.

  They decide to take it before I can get my crossbow from its sling to continue the negotiations. I give them the location of the ship. “Leave the money with the captain.” Before they can slink away, I aim the smoking pistol at them. “If you try shorting me, I’ll find you. Is that understood?”

  They nod and bow before scurrying away. I manage to wait until they’ve gone to throw up in the corner again. Then I turn to the boy and say, “Go back to the ship and tell Captain St. Pierre that those men are coming. Be quick about it.”

  “What about you, ma’am?”

  “I have to do some shopping.”

  I wait until he’s gone to duck behind the sacks of grain. There’s no one watching me, so I can vanish myself to the archives. I come in on the main floor and then climb down the ladder to the first floor.

  There is of course a new girl working. Ingrid didn’t last long after Sophie’s death. Since then, Glenda has been a little more selective in whom she puts down here. The latest is a young girl who looks eerily similar to how I did as a milkmaid, except that her hair is dark brown and much straighter. Despite that there can’t be much to eat down here, the girl is still about a hundred eighty pounds at least. She makes no attempt to get off her stool as I ap
proach.

  “I need some information,” I tell her.

  “What sort of information?” she asks in a shy voice. I wonder how long she’s been down here, though she might not even know.

  “I need to find out if someone—a friend—is pregnant. Is there some kind of spell for that?”

  “I can look for you,” she says. She reaches under her desk, coming back up with a book almost as wide as she is. The enormous book lands on the desk with a thud that kicks up dust. The girl opens it and I can see that it’s a ledger indexing the various spells, potions, and charms. She flips through page after page, her finger skimming along in search of the information. “Here it is. How to Determine Pregnancy. Do you want me to fetch the scroll for you?”

  “No, I can get it.” To my surprise the girl begins to cry. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  “You think I can’t do it because I’m fat, don’t you?”

  “Of course not,” I say, though that was exactly what I was thinking.

  “I’m not supposed to be fat. I wasn’t when I came down here.” She sniffles and I pat her back, trying to comfort her. “I went down into the vault and one of the stupid spells got out. Ever since then I’m hungry all the time, but if I eat anything I gain weight instantly. Glenda says she has someone working on a potion, but nothing has helped yet.”

  I reach into my pocket for a handkerchief that I hand to her. No doubt it’s Aggie who’s supposed to be finding a potion to change this poor mortal girl back to normal. I only hope she doesn’t decide to show up with the potion as I’m here. Patting the girl’s shoulder, I say, “I know the witch she has working on it and she’s very good at what she does. She’ll find a way to help you.”

  “No she won’t. No one cares about me! I’m just a worthless orphan they dumped down here.” The girl blows into the handkerchief, the sound like an elephant’s cry. She tries to give the handkerchief back, but I let her keep it.

  Looking her in the eye, I ask, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “Why don’t you go fetch that scroll for me, Rebecca? Can you do that?”

  She nods and then hops off the stool. She waddles over to the shelves, disappearing for a few moments. I wait anxiously, tapping my foot and turning to the ladder in case Aggie or anyone else shows up. It might be awkward to explain to them what I need this recipe for.

  The girl’s face brightens and she practically skips over to me. “I found it!” she says.

  “That’s good, Rebecca.” I take the scroll from her and read it a few times until I’ve memorized it. Then I roll it back up to hand to her. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her chubby cheeks light up as she smiles at me. “You’re the nicest witch I’ve met so far.”

  “Thank you.” I see in that moment a way to use this to my advantage. “Since we’re such good friends now, can you do something else for me?”

  “What is it?”

  “Can you not tell anyone that I came here?”

  She considers this for a moment and then nods. “I can do that.”

  “Thank you, Rebecca. It was very nice to meet you.”

  First I vanish back to Connor’s old house in Edinburgh, in the attic. There, in a trunk, I have some magical items—charms, potions, and ingredients—stored away. I sort through these until I find two round, smooth stones that are jade green, but with flakes of gold. These are elfstones, some of the rarest stones in the world. I drop these into my pocket and then seal the trunk again.

  I don’t return directly to the marketplace in Alexandria. Instead, I vanish myself into an alley, where it’s unlikely anyone will see me. This hunch proves correct, as no one does see me. I pause here to bend down and throw up, which I fortunately kept from doing in front of poor, fat Rebecca. Thinking of her, I remember how happy I was at Frau Braun’s, how happy I had been to look like a completely different person, an ordinary girl.

  But I’m not an ordinary girl. No ordinary girl could vanish from Egypt to Ireland to Scotland and then back to Egypt within the span of an hour. No ordinary girl had possession of the valuable elfstones. And no ordinary girl could do what I was about to do.

  Finding a live chicken in the marketplace is easy enough. Again not wanting to waste time by haggling, I simply toss the merchant a bag full of coins. I don’t bother to wait for him to count these before I snatch the chicken by its feet, holding it upside down. The evil creature stabs at me with its beak, the beak shredding my jacket. When it tries again, I seize its neck with my free hand. “That’s enough from you.”

  The hotel where I’m staying overnight doesn’t have a problem with me carrying a live chicken through the lobby and up to my room. There I let the chicken’s feet go, its feet clawing at me as I lock the door. The feet don’t manage to do any damage before I grab them again.

  I wish I’d bought a cage, but I’ll have to just make do with my hotel room. I have to let go of the chicken’s feet again as I reach into my jacket for my silver knife. After setting this on the table, I go over to the bed and fetch the chamber pot. This I take over to the table and then sit down. Glaring into the chicken’s soulless eyes, I say, “Now you get yours.”

  It pains me more emotionally than physically as the chicken thrashes around while I slit it open from one end to the other. The old expression, “like a chicken with its head cut off,” is pretty accurate, as the chicken is still thrashing around even as its blood is draining into the chamber pot. The recipe from the archives specified that for it to work, I would need at least two cups of blood. It’s difficult to gauge this in the chamber pot, so I have to make a rough guess.

  Once I’m satisfied I have enough of the chicken’s blood, I set it aside. Its body is still moving, though not as violently as it was. Ignoring the chicken, I wipe the knife clean for the next part of the recipe. This part is far more painful physically as I have to slit open the palm of my left hand with the knife. The recipe actually does specify the left hand for reasons I’m not entirely clear on; Sabrina would probably know.

  Holding back a scream, I let my blood drain into the chamber pot just as I did with the chicken. Mercifully I need only a couple of teaspoons of my blood, not cups of it. Once I’m sure I have enough, I tear off a strip of cloth to tie around my hand.

  With my uninjured hand, I reach into my jacket for the elfstones. This is the easiest part of the recipe. I simply drop them into the bloody brew and then wait for a reaction. From what the recipe said, if the blood boils then I’m not pregnant.

  But my blood doesn’t boil. It congeals, becoming a gelatinous magenta-colored mass. I poke this with one finger as tears form in my eyes.

  Maybe I did the test wrong, but I doubt it. I’m certainly not going to buy another chicken and even if I did, I’d need to ask another witch for more elfstones. I’ll just have to assume that I did this test right.

  I’m pregnant.

  Chapter 29

  The good thing about hiding in a Muslim country is that none of the women are showing any skin. This makes it easy enough for me to fit in while wearing a loose black dress that does a good job of disguising my belly. The people are also respectful enough that even if they can tell, no one’s asking to touch my stomach and feel my baby kick.

  I can feel her inside of me now. Any doubts I had were wiped away when I felt that first kick as I lay in bed here in Cairo, where I’ve taken refuge from the coven, Aggie, and especially Alejandro. The bouts of morning sickness, lack of a period, swollen ankles, and tender breasts I could try to write off with another explanation. I couldn’t once I felt that kick.

  There is of course no way to know for certain that my child is a girl. Not even Aggie with her feelings can be absolutely sure until the baby comes out. My own feelings tell me that it is a girl inside of me—Alejandro’s daughter and mine.

  I’ve spent many long days and nights trying to imagine what she might look like. Will she have Alejandro’s brown eyes or my green
ones? Will her hair be black or red? Will her skin have his Mediterranean complexion or my pasty redhead complexion? I put the pieces together, sometimes giving her brown eyes, red hair, and olive-tinged skin and other times green eyes, black hair, and pale skin. I see her as combinations of tall, short, fat, and thin.

  No matter how I see her, there’s one thing that remains constant: I want to see her smile. I want her to be happy all the time. I want her to laugh and play and dance. I don’t care if she’s a “proper” young lady or a vagrant. All I want is for her to have the happiness and contentment that’s always eluded me.

  The problem then always becomes how I could possibly provide that. I have enough money to take care of dozens of kids, enough to buy a house with plenty of room for the two of us. I try to imagine myself changing diapers and cooking meals, but I can’t. The only cooking I’ve ever done is over a campfire, usually involving roasting the carcass of a squirrel or rabbit on a homemade spit. I could have servants do those chores as Mama did around our house; in that case, what will I do?

  I know I can’t be a mother like Mama or even like Aggie. The first time my daughter throws a tantrum, what am I going to do, pull out my crossbow? Would I use all of those martial arts moves Hisae taught me on her?

  I feel her kick again, so hard that I wince. I remember what Aggie said about Luc one day kicking right through her. Maybe that’s what my baby will do. “It’s all right,” I whisper to her, putting a hand on my stomach. “Mama’s here.”

  There’s a knock on my bedroom door. A young woman shuffles into the room. Her name is Jaida and she’s been my personal assistant since I arrived in Cairo two months ago. I met her on the street, begging for money to support her family. Her husband died from an illness and left her and her three children destitute. I pay her a good wage and found a place for her and her family. In exchange, she does my shopping, laundry, and other routine things that have become increasingly difficult the bigger I get.

  Jaida looks down at the floor as she always does. “I’m sorry to intrude, Madam Joubert.”