Pointing it at Risen but speaking to William, he said, “Little bastard knocked me flat! I’m running him through—”
He began to advance on Risen, but William’s voice rose above all the confusion. “Leave him be.”
“But he tried to kill me! Tried to escape!” The guard’s sword dangled loosely in one hand as he swept the other toward the boy.
“Leave him. It is your own ineptitude that landed you on the ground, and let it be a lesson to you, but I’ll not have you take your shame out on the captive.” William reverted to his argument in the tavern. “The boy is for sale, and you will not damage our gains, no matter your wounded pride.”
The soldier was perhaps not the sharpest of the band of men and rubbed his head with some confusion. He appeared weakly ready to object further, but William motioned him away.
“You’re relieved. I will stand the guard tonight and not speak of your failure here.” William said it as though the fault was entirely the guard’s, and he would cover his wretched humiliation before anyone else discovered it.
Leaning down to snatch his hat from the ground, the guard seemed to reconcile the odds of a salvageable evening—in or out—and decided that in was definitely the better choice. He said nothing more, only stomped from the livery, brushing the dirt from his trousers as he left.
“Should’ve killed him in the woods,” the man muttered as he stomped away.
Risen jumped to his feet and walked tenuously over to Sylvie. “Did they…are you—”
“I’m not hurt.” She indicated William. “He stopped them.”
“I reasoned with them. Everything I said was true; it wasn’t personal.” The Englishman hastily brushed away any interpretation of compassion and shoved her, perhaps harder than he meant to, toward Risen. “Get back to the loft, now—both of you.”
Risen caught her in his arms and held her upright, searching her eyes. He spoke softly. “They didn’t touch you? You’re all right?”
She righted herself and brushed her filthy shift straight. “No. I told you, he wouldn’t let them.” She nodded over her shoulder at the English soldier. William scowled as she began to add, “He isn’t what you think—”
“I said get into the loft!” William stepped closer, fists clenched. “Now—before I change my mind and return you to Yeorathe!”
Risen glowered at him as he gently steered Sylvie beneath the loft. The faces peering from above disappeared as William propped the ladder. Up the two went, Risen following Sylvie, keeping his arms around her legs, for she was unstable without the brace. In this fashion, he climbed up behind her.
The children crawled over the edge of the loft, and William pulled the ladder away. Taking up a post closer to the livery door, he sat, leaning heavily against a large timber. He reached, taking from his jacket a wine flask but only stared at it. It was familiar to him, had campaigned with him for many years. Once, in battle, it’d been nearly ruined, cut into with a sword, but the slice hadn’t gone all the way through. It had been his greatest fear that day, that he would lose this old friend. Tonight…he cast it aside.
Resting one arm across his knee, he leaned his head heavily back against the beam and gazed at the night sky that loomed brilliantly above the small town. His was a weary face, older than it should have been. His eyes were sad and so very lonely. William’s whole demeanor carried an expression of someone living only because it was a task he could not escape.
Then, something truly remarkable happened. For the first time in a very long while, the Englishman felt the sting of purpose, the burden of humanity. He’d not shouldered this for nearly longer than he could remember, and it was unfamiliar, like a new set of clothes. He embraced it, permitted it to cross the threshold, allowed it to settle across the mantle of his shoulders and sink into the lost corners of his heart. For the first time in a very, very long time, William felt the sting of a tear. He brushed it aside and decided that it was not such a disagreeable feeling after all.
* * *
Once back in the loft, Risen noticed first that their nest of straw was gone—confiscated by the other boys.
“You will be sorry for your thoughtlessness!” he threatened but was too battered to engage the other captives any further. The two of them found a dark corner where the slope of the roof met an upright wall and leaned against it for a bit, sitting next to one other.
“He isn’t evil,” Sylvie whispered. “They are, but he isn’t.”
“Why do you care?” Risen was incredulous. “He is part of them. They killed your parents, your brother!”
“He did not,” she countered gently.
“How do you know that? How can you trust him?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “It doesn’t matter. A man would not be in this trade were he not evil. That is the all of it.”
She turned to better face him, wincing as she straightened her bad leg. She reached for his hand. “Risen, think of your father. Do you believe him to be a good man?”
“Of course I do.” He was moderately annoyed that she would even ask such a thing.
He began to unlace her shoe as he meant to ease it from her foot. What he did was a very intimate thing, and in the ordinary course of life it would have been intensely forbidden. But they were not in an ordinary course of life, and they were not constrained by the belief system of the elders of their time. They were children—taken, fragile, and on a path as uncertain as the life of a raindrop. He then pulled off her other shoe and laid it next to its mate.
“Do you believe your father has ever killed a man?” Sylvie asked as Risen pulled off his jacket and spread it across the laps of both of them.
This question caught him by surprise, and he answered hastily. “Of course he has. That’s just a foolish question.” He was immediately sorry about this and quickly added, “It was his…his duty, his occupation. You don’t understand. Sometimes there are bad people and…”
Now he thought himself ignorant, for no one should be able to understand better than she that there were bad people who could and would do bad things.
“Were you present during his occupation…when he has ever killed anyone?” She pressed him gently as she reached for his hand.
Risen was somewhat preoccupied with her holding his hand, and he forced himself to concentrate, studied her, his eyes reflecting his uncertainty. “Why do you ask me these things? My father is a good man. You know this.”
“Yes, Risen. He is. Of this I have no doubt. Yet what I know of your father is very little if you think about it.” He was modestly offended, and she added gently, “I know that he is a good father and a good husband. I know that he is a brilliant warrior and that he rules the dynasty with care. But, I also know that he is…was, a mercenary—a hired soldier. You yourself told me this.”
“I don’t understand what you are trying to say. My father is a great man, and…”
Risen was genuinely miserable and rubbed his head gingerly, cautiously exploring the orbital ridge of his eye. It was swelling from the blow the soldier—the one who’d taken her—had given him at the outset, but he could not see the deep purple that was marking it now.
Sylvie persisted. “I am saying that your father was also taken once. He was owned by the one they called Duval. We have all heard tale of this.”
Risen remained on the defense. “My father would never hurt children or women. I know this in my heart. It is part of his principles. He—”
“And, evidently…neither would William.”
This gave him pause, and he searched her eyes, tried to draw from them what she already appeared to know. They’d been through so much, suffered so much.
He tried but was unconvinced. “We cannot trust him, Sylvie. We mustn’t.”
“I did not say that we could. I only mean to say his soul is a tortured one. He deserves compassion, Risen. He deserves love.”
“You will excuse me if I don’t feel the same way.” Risen physically pulled away from her. “He is one of them. He means to
profit from our misery. He—”
She stopped him, laid her arm on his and, again, took his hand. Laying it against her cheek, she kissed his palm. This was enough to instantly arrest him, for Sylvie had never before reached for him in this fashion, and certainly never kissed him, even if it was his hand. Searching his soul for words, he found none.
Only a short time ago he had professed his love for her, and he thought she meant to do the same. This still burned within his heart, and when she did not, he wondered if she remembered. Would she say those words to him? But was this not the same? This kiss on his hand?
She held his hand gently to her chest, over her beating heart. He believed she read his thoughts, saw into his soul.
“Risen, if you love me, do not let anger cloud your heart. If you love me, truly love me as you say, let it not be blighted with hatred for another, especially one you may not know as well as you think you do.” She replaced his hand onto his lap. “I would be difficult to love another who would be so unfeeling.”
Risen struggled with this, with Sylvie’s ability to forgive—her willingness to extend pity. “Sylvie, these men captured us. They will sell us when we reach the sea. We will be parted, perhaps…perhaps…” He could not say what he believed to be true, that if they were separated he would survive, possibly, but she most certainly would not. “I cannot share your charity,” he admitted. “If I have the opportunity, I will kill them.”
There…it was out. He’d said it. He was, after all, his father’s son—offspring of Ravan, son of the most feared mercenary ever. But, he dreaded what she might say in return.
“Risen, I know our fortunes are uncertain. Things are changed. But of this I am certain, that you saved my life that morning at my family’s farm. I am also convinced that at this moment we are together in this loft, and the stars have come out.” She shifted, indicated the small venting window that was long fallen from its hinges near the shambled roof peak, and nudged closer to him, resting her head tenderly on his shoulder. “Don’t you feel so fortunate that we can share them together?”
He turned his cheek, allowed his lips to caress her hair, pressed them against her. Risen closed his eyes, breathed in the essence of her leaning against him. She reached a thin arm around his waist, and his heart swelled for he could not imagine, at that moment, loving someone more than he did her. This was a very powerful thing—the first time a heart feels connected in this way.
He then allowed his gaze to wander past the small window opening she’d indicated. Beyond sparkled a black, velvety night, sprinkled with perhaps the brightest stars Risen had ever seen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
†
The moon slanted through the quarter window of the ship, breaking through the clouds and splashing off the water in so many parallel, silver ribbons. It also lit the body of a sailor, shining cool off his deeply tanned skin as he peeled from his clothes. His frame was lean, angular and still holding its youth.
A scar arced in nearly a perfect hook, across his shoulder, down his back, and off his right flank. It was ironic because it was caused by a hook tossed from a stubborn fish, the line having swept across the boom of a boat as it marked him in such a peculiar way.
It’d been an ugly wound, and his first mate had stitched it closed. It was wide and ridged, and glistened an odd, pearl grey on his skin giving it an even more surreal appearance. Once the pain was gone, he was indifferent to it, but over time he grew to like it, believing it was a good sign. Sailors needed signs, and this sailor thought it was God’s way of letting him know he was there, and a time would come when they would meet and have words with each other.
He was a young captain, almost thirty, but his vessel was owned outright, and he had the experience of a lifetime at sea. Shrewd, sharp, and with a fierce wit, Salvatore was a man of some notoriety. What drove him was the ocean and his boat upon it, though his father’s voice could always be heard somewhere, reminding him that a living must be made.
“It’s a balance,” the old sailor had warned him, “and you must run back and forth along the scales. The risk,” he shook a finger at his son, “is that carelessness can make you lose your freedom—the freedom to chase your love—a ship on the open sea.” His father had also been in love with the sea, and Salvatore stepped easily into his footsteps.
He remembered his father’s words now, thought that perhaps he’d spent more time than he should on one side of those scales, but this trip had helped to even them out a bit. And the cargo had not been complicated—Indian salt and the burros that packed it. The Europeans craved the salt these days, and the nutty, brown rice it was packed in. A small, surely scarcely missed portion of it had been a welcome treat for his men on their voyage. And, they’d butchered one of the burros too. Salvatore knew the buyers would assume the loss as an acceptable hazard at sea, and his men would remain well fed and loyal as ever.
The boat swayed slightly against her moorings as the naked man splashed Mediterranean oil into his hair, running his fingers through it before sweeping it back behind his ears. He ran his hand over his short beard, salvaging the last of the oil before donning his best, least salty, clothes.
Warm, brown eyes sparkled as he eyed himself in the captain’s mirror, a gift given him for a covert dash into the orient. The ship’s cargo that particular run had been a single passenger, and the thickly framed mirror was a rare and appreciated gift in addition to the generous payment. Tonight, Salvatore appreciated the image that stared back at him.
His pulse quickened, and a familiar excitement ran down his neck and across his shoulders as surely as though someone had drawn a finger there. He anticipated his evening. It was his intent to be ashore within the hour, drunk within two, and back aboard his ship in…five, perhaps six. But not until he’d fought at least one fight and occupied some sweet, female company landside.
Salvatore took up his sword, a Spanish Toledan that had belonged to his father, and lastly, he looped the leather cord—the one with an image carved in red coral fixed to it—about his neck. It was a bird, a raven. He dropped the token beneath his shirt and passed his hand over it, making sure it rested there. Then he kissed two fingers and pressed them against the wood underbelly of his ship.
“Grace go with you,” he murmured to her before leaving his captain’s quarters.
Stalking onto the deck, he scanned the boat as a lover does the body of his mate. The graceful curve of her, sweeping to the bow, was busy with activity. Two masts stood against the bright, early night sky, their spreaders like so many arms, greeting their master, begging him to stay. A smile pulled at the edge of his lips. He would not be gone from her for very long, for the Red Raven was a jealous mistress.
It’d been a good run—profitable, and his crew would be well rewarded. There were a few repairs to be tended, some wagers to make square on, but it was a good tide, and he was in high spirits as he breathed in deeply of the night air.
His crew was busy, scurrying about, for they’d scarcely been at dock a few hours. They unloaded freight, restocked supply, scrubbed, stowed, and secured all that must be until his ship was perfect. Then, they would break. It was how he commanded his ship, and his men were of his kind, respecting his ethic as though it was their own.
Several of the sailors looked up from their work, nodded or gave a two fingered wave as their captain surfaced from below. This was not the first time they’d been ashore with Salvatore. When all was in place, they too would go landside in shifts, perhaps seeing him there, perhaps not.
“Men!” he cheered and swept a hand across the lot of them. “A splendid voyage, and it is time we reap the spoils of our toils!”
He was met with a resounding cheer from all of them. Then, the Spaniard stalked down the plank and onto the dock. Moments later he was swept up into the early tide of life that was evening in the small, wicked town of Toulon.
* * *
Ravan entered the port town at nearly dusk. He and his band of men were exhausted. The
y had ridden nearly nonstop for eight days, resting only long enough to keep themselves in the saddle and exchange their horses for fresh mounts. They were gravely worn and lean, their mounts even more so.
The animals were untacked straightaway, and respite was gained as well for his men as they camped on the outskirts of Toulon. Velecent alone would accompany Ravan into town.
He’d learned, along the way, from those who would help them and a few who wouldn’t, that Toulon was the end stop of their search. Here they would find the captive children or discover them missing, if they were already gone—set sail to the East to be sold.
The bustling town of Toulon was a shipping seaport, and something Ravan was unfamiliar with. He immediately didn’t like it, strongly preferred the isolation of the mountains, the solitary voice of wind through the forest on a cold day. There were men of all sorts and ill sorts—traders, sailors, merchants—even pirates if one looked closely enough. Ravan did not fear them, for he was more than well acquainted with their like.
Besides Risen and Sylvie, there were many other commodities being bought and sold in the seaside market—furs, goat skins, wine, copper, silk. Then there were those who dealt with less than reputable trades, slavery being one of them. Amongst them were those who would sell a child. Ravan’s heart hardened.
No one who walked this village could know it, but there was a time when this dark mercenary had endured for a long while the taste of murder and revenge on the back of his tongue. It’d been a blessing and a curse for him, had given him strength when all else had failed him. A woman whom he loved and two children, a home, friend…a brother, these things had taken the awful taste from him. Now…it was back.
Initially, he fought an overwhelming urgency to simply scourge the harbor, to search boats, warehouses, and docks for anyone who might know of the whereabouts of his son. But he realized this would be nearly an impossible task, and so his strategy was simple. He must find out which boats sailed east, find out who was supplying recruits for the Turkish army, find the heart of profit in human trade.
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