It is not good for man to be alone.
He shook his head as the verse popped into his mind. One day… one day, he’d find a wife to share this with, one who would love him, and Benjamin, and the simple life here.
The moon cast shadows down into the valley. Making its way back up to him was the sound of a fiesta at one of the properties below. Nearly every evening in summer was an excuse for a party – and this was the first year he’d be present for them.
He had no idea what time it was. He stepped off the terrace and onto the lawn. Ever since the encounter with Tito, the boys had taken it upon themselves to patrol the grounds well into the night. One particular shadow caught his eye and he followed it around the front of Laura’s studio.
“Good evening, Donato.”
Elias couldn’t help a grin as the young boy jumped.
“I didn’t hear you,” Donato answered needlessly.
“Always have your ears open, never let anyone sneak up on you. Even if they’re a friend,” Elias told him.
They walked together down to the edge of the property where the land fell away into the ancient ravine and along the western side to the edge of the woodlands, and back toward one of the gardens. The youth stopped and stared at the blooms.
“Mr. Elias, do you think if I had not run away but stayed and married Gina that God would have allowed our baby to live?”
The question was surprising; Elias had found the boy had a good heart but hadn’t thought him to be much of a deep thinker.
“God doesn’t work like that, Donato. Some babies live and some babies die – that’s just the way of it. God doesn’t punish children for their parents.”
The youth considered the answer a moment before speaking again. “I think about her sometimes, the baby, because she would be the same age as your Benjamin. I want to be a good father one day, Mr. Elias. Like you.”
The sentiment touched him. He patted Donato on the shoulder – then punched him in the upper arm. “First one back to the kitchen gets a double serving of Serafina’s lemon gelato.”
They took off together at a run.
Elias started out of a deep sleep. He kept his eyes closed but listened. Benjamin remained asleep, so that wasn’t it. Perhaps, it had been the end of a dream he was too tired to remember.
There was the sound again, a heavy rustling in the bushes. Did Angelo forget to pen one of the goats? Then there was silence once more and he found himself succumbing to sleep again.
Bang!
Elias sat bolt upright, eyes wide open. That came from inside the house. He was never as obsessed as Kit until lately. He had a knife in his hand and his feet in unlaced boots before he rose. He didn’t bother with a shirt.
A glance at Benjamin in his cot assured him the boy slept safely. He opened the bedroom door a crack and saw a man-sized figure crossing through the sitting room toward the bedrooms on the other side of the house. He followed silently.
A feminine scream arose, along with the acrid smell of smoke. He ran toward it. He caught the glint of a swinging blade in the corner of his eye and ducked low enough for it to miss him. Coming back up, reacting on instinct, he shoved his own knife toward the assailant and felt the thrust enter deep. The man grunted.
Elias pressed on at a run. Laura’s bedroom was well ablaze and the hall leading to the bedrooms used by Serafina and Gina was becoming thick with smoke. Elias bent low and continued toward the sound of breaking glass. He burst through into the housekeeper’s bedroom door to see Serafina halfway through the window and the ghostly white face of Matteo outside.
“There are men all over the grounds – a dozen of them at least,” Matteo yelled, pulling the housekeeper out. “They’ve set the stables and our quarters alight. Gina is safe with Donato, and Pasquale and Angelo are getting the animals to safety.”
“Take Serafina and head to the barn at the edge of the olive grove,” Elias commanded. “I’ll get Benjamin and meet you there – but don’t wait for us if it’s not safe. Get everyone to the village.”
Matteo nodded, then his eyes widened as he looked back over Elias’ shoulder. “Look out!”
Elias didn’t look, he simply reacted, diving to the side. A flaming torch bounced off the windowsill where he had stood. The man who had hurled it at him was already retreating back out of the room as the torch fell beside the bed and instantly ignited the hastily thrown back bed sheets.
Elias negotiated past the conflagration. The man was gone and the hall was black with smoke. Volcanic orange flames roiled along the ceiling. The air, even the plaster walls were hot. He scrambled now on hands and knees, cursing that he had left Benjamin in his cot.
His shoulder bumped against a long, narrow, hall table. He rose to his knees and searched blindly for the bowl of flowers Serafina put there daily. Bringing the bowl down, he tugged at the table runner and a dozen little ornaments crashed to the floor around him. He was choking, his eyes watering. He threw the flowers aside and plunged the fabric into the bowl until it was saturated. He wrapped it around his head, keeping only his eyes uncovered.
Every action was done with urgency. Benjamin was alone, and Elias was under no illusion about what – who – these men were after.
Attuned to the boy’s cry over the sound of crackling flames, he dashed through his open bedroom door. The room was filling with smoke but, thank God, not in flame.
Another threat was before him.
Two men were in the middle of the room, dressed in black, their faces covered with dark keffiyehs. Assassins! And in the shadows, over Benjamin’s crib, moved a third man.
In the noise and smoke, none had seen him. So Elias sidled quickly along the wall to the man who loomed over Benjamin. The baby screeched in terror as the man reached in. Before thought could form, Elias lunged forward with both arms outstretched. He pulled the man back. With one hand on his chin, the other to the top of his head, Elias twisted and pulled with all the strength he possessed until the crack of the man’s neck breaking sounded above the cracking of the inferno. The man fell limp in Elias’ arms and slid silently to the floor.
“Ibrahim, grab the boy and let’s go,” hissed one of the two men lost in the smoke. “The flames will be here soon!”
“I’ve got him,” Elias answered back in Arabic. He held Benjamin to his chest, the babe’s screams now just a panicked grizzle. The two strangers loomed in the smoke an instant then, not seeing Elias, and they ran through the smashed French doors that led out into the garden.
Elias snagged the canvas bag he had dismissed so carelessly that afternoon and followed through the French doors which belched smoke out onto the narrow patio and the lawn.
The men ran toward the eastern boundary, taking them past Laura’s studio. It, too, was alight. One of the men turned back to look at him and Elias’ heart pounded, but it seemed the fabric around his face and the billowing smoke was enough so far to not betray his identity.
Elias slowed, letting the two men run further ahead. In the moonlight and the flames from the studio, he could see men already mounted on horses waiting for them. He ran as far as one of the fruit trees and paused. The olive grove was four hundred yards uphill. Behind him, flames burst from the open bedroom, illuminating the entire lawn as one of the assassins looked back.
“Ibrahim! What are you doing?” he called. The man stopped running completely and stared at Elias a moment before realizing he had been deceived. “You are not one of us!” he yelled, then shouted to his accomplice and the waiting horsemen.
If he went uphill, Elias knew he would be overrun quickly. He turned and ran toward the woodland to the west. The thick growth of trees would provide some protection from the men on horseback.
Though hampered by the child in his arms, the unlaced boots slowing him even more, he dared not stop. He ran through a vale of fire with the villa ablaze to his right and Laura’s studio to the left.
Benjamin wailed, but Elias had no words to comfort him; all he could think of was the h
orror of being overrun, his son snatched from his arms, and a dying knowledge that he had failed the child and the woman he loved.
Lungs abused by smoke begged for air, but still he kept running. The sound of jangling bridles told him how close he was to death.
A cry of triumph sounded behind him. Elias gritted his teeth and waited for the swing of the scimitar that would separate his head from his shoulders.
Oh God, receive me in your arms. I beg you to protect my son.
Suddenly it was bright and hard to breathe, as though something had sucked the oxygen from the air, then –
Boom!
Elias’ ears blocked and popped. Benjamin screamed in pain. Over the smell of burning timber was the unmistakable odor of turpentine. Laura’s studio and its artist’s supplies had exploded as violently as an over-rammed cannon, sending bricks and shrapnel flying. Horses screamed in panic, the steady beat of racing hooves now an uncontrolled trammeling as those riders still mounted tried to control their mounts.
Still, Elias kept running as bricks and roof slates fell around him, every step a prayer to the Divine for deliverance. He ran clean out of his boots as he entered the trees, and he kept running despite the twigs and rocks that pricked and cut his feet, the dead ache of carrying a baby who now needed changing, the sting of low branches and saplings whipping across his bare face after ripping off his makeshift scarf.
Only when his legs gave out from under him did Elias stop. His ears rang and breathing hurt. Everything hurt. He tried to console himself with the fact that pain meant he still lived and, while Benjamin wailed, he was alive, too.
The hooves! The hooves were coming, coming, coming – then they slowed until Elias couldn’t hear them anymore. It took a moment to realize the pounding was his own heartbeat. He half-crawled under a bush. He had to rest, just for a short while. With Benjamin still settled on his chest, Elias squeezed his eyes tight, allowing them to water. It provided some relief to the grit and ash that filled them.
When he opened his eyes again, the night sky had become grey and the earliest risers amongst the birds welcomed the morning, their lives unaffected by the drama of the night just gone.
Another miracle – the sound of a spring. Elias turned his head to where the rising sun turned the water to silver.
“Come on, matey,” he said to Benjamin, “let’s get you cleaned up.” The words pained his smoke-dried throat to utter.
He made his way painfully over to the spring and the cold rivulet running from it. He cupped his hands and drank deeply, then put dripping wet fingers into the child’s mouth. His hands shook as he released the drawstring on the sack he had slung over his shoulder. Benjamin reached for a piece of hardtack that had spilled to the ground. Elias handed it to him and it went immediately to his mouth to suck, leaving Elias free to change the soiled napkin and discard it. He was rewarded with a smile from the boy.
His own feet were next. They were raw and bloodied in places, so he tore a spare napkin for bandages, rueing that he had not taken the extra seconds to tie his boot laces.
Who wanted him more?
Tito’s words warned him how high the stakes had become. They had been prepared to kill and lay waste for Benjamin.
Elias was prepared to die for him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The sun was well past noon when Elias paused at the edge of the woodland that bounded his estate. The view that greeted him could not be more dispiriting. The blackened ruins of his home still smoldered – the place he had worked so very hard for, his small piece of paradise. Part of him wanted to weep.
Benjamin slept at his chest, cradled in the sling he’d fashioned from the piece of canvas in his pack.
This was a nightmare. Who else survived? Did anyone? Smoke from still glowing embers within the villa drifted lazily skyward in the breezeless air. The back of the house, around the kitchen, still stood but it was badly damaged. Laura’s studio cottage was utterly razed. Masonry and charred beams from the blast were scattered far and wide across the lawn. She had saved him and Benjamin with her volatile artist’s turpentine.
He glanced up toward the olive grove, still intact. The silence disturbed him. Did Matteo and the others escape down to the village? Were they safe in the shed? The thought of finding them slaughtered by the assassins made his already delicate stomach sour further.
He rubbed his hand across his baby son’s cheeks.
What was he going to do? What could he do?
Elias heard his name called. Matteo was running toward him, with Pasquale close behind.
“Thank the Blessed Virgin, you’re safe, Mr. Elias!” Matteo said. “We’ve been worried sick about you and Benjamin. Angelo and Donato have been searching everywhere.”
“Serafina and Gina? They’re safe?”
Pasquale nodded affirmatively. “They are with my father and mother in the village.”
Elias turned to Matteo whose grim face had not lightened.
“What’s wrong?”
“We found a stranger’s body.”
“I had to kill two of them in the house.”
Both young men looked at one another in surprise.
“You’ve not been in the house yet have you?” Elias asked.
“Just the kitchen. It was the only room not seriously damaged, and we wanted to get some food.”
“Where did you find this body?”
“On the lawn between the terrace and Miss Laura’s studio,” Pasquale answered. “I think his horse threw him and he broke his neck.”
Elias glanced about. “Where is he?”
“In the shed behind the barn. We didn’t know what else to do with him.”
“Show me.”
His own horses, which had been released out into a paddock, looked at him as he approached the stable yard. The building itself was more scorched than burned, thank God. The water troughs about the yard and stable had been close enough that the blaze could be extinguished before it took hold.
Elias handed Benjamin over to Pasquale who understood without being told to keep the baby away from the grim sight.
The dead man was face up, arms raised above his head which canted sideways at an awkward angle. The boys had dragged the body in out of the sun and just dropped him in here.
Matteo hung back as Elias examined the corpse. He was looking for something specific – a pouch that might contain some information as to the identity of this assassin – or perhaps even his employer. He found it. He used his knife to slit the belt around the dead man’s waist, stood up and opened the drawstring.
The first thing to come to hand was a small, corked bottle. He part opened the stopper and sniffed the bitter odor of opiates. The bag yielded some coins – enough for a night’s accommodation and a meal, nothing extravagant. The final items were two pieces of paper. One was a thin strip of vellum wrapped tight. He recognized the flowing Arabic script as a Koranic verse. He had seen them before on the corsairs, a talisman of sorts for protection, but he couldn’t read it. The only two people he knew who could were Kit and Jonathan, and they were two thousand miles away.
The second paper looked like a receipt of some kind, but again it was written in Arabic. He dropped the opium bottle and prayer scroll onto the man’s chest and pocketed the receipt. He turned his back on the corpse and headed toward the stables.
“Let’s find Donato and Angelo,” he said. “We’ll need to dig graves for this one and the two in the villa.” He didn’t envy the youths their first sight of a burned corpse but there was no other choice.
“Do you think those other men will be back?” asked Matteo.
“I think we can be certain of it.”
Elias knew he was still considered somewhat of a stranger to Villagrazia in many respects, even though he had called it home for nearly four years. And he accepted it would take another twenty years before he stopped being referred as “the new owner of old Mineo villa”.
But here, in the home of Serafina’s brother, dozen
s of people had stopped by to express their dismay, and to bring food and clothing. Some were angry at the arson, and he did not doubt that some of their concern was self-serving.
Who did this? Would they be next?
Elias wished he had answers for them, but he did not. The only thing he could say for certain was Selim Omar would not stop until he had Benjamin, and Elias was equally determined to prevent him.
It was late when the last person left. Elias slumped forward on the table, his head in his hands, unable to quell a soul-deep yawn. Sleeping a whole week would do for a start but he couldn’t afford that luxury. Still, he couldn’t think like this. Then, when he closed his eyes, he relived the entire previous day. He wasn’t sure how much he could stand.
Raffaele’s hand rested heavily on his shoulder. “Go to bed, Son. No man could have done more than you.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Believe an old man when I say it is enough. Your family is safe. That is enough.”
The next morning, Benjamin’s cry of “Papa!” and the sight of him waving his arms lifted Elias’ spirits.
The boy bounced up and down on Serafina’s knee. They sat in the family kitchen while Gina helped Serafina’s sister-in-law prepare breakfast for the extra guests.
“Coffee, Mr. Elias?” Gina asked.
“Tea?” he asked hopefully.
“This is a Sicilian household, Mr. Elias – only coffee here.”
“Then coffee will be fine.”
“One more spoonful, little man,” Serafina coaxed but the baby turned his head away, refusing another spoonful of food. He watched Elias intently.
“Let me try.”
As if he understood every word, Benjamin chortled, reaching out his own arms as Elias took him.
Revenge of the Corsairs Page 27
