Revenge of the Corsairs

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Elias woke early along with the coastal birds roosting in the cliffs. He sent a silent prayer upwards that his climb across the cliff face would not be as difficult as he feared. But while the drop was precipitous, the early morning sun cast shadows across its face, revealing to him hand and foot holds to use.

  With his weight on his left hand, Elias reached across with his right to find his next hand hold, moving back and forth, crab-like, up and along the cliff. He had climbed rock and cliff faces many a time, but never before with a weight on his back, so he kept his pack light. Just three explosive shells today. If all went well, he would explore the walled compound, hide the explosives, and return to his own nest without being discovered. Tomorrow, he would return with two more shells and four horns full of powder to set the charges.

  As the morning wore on, the winds flattened him against the volcanic rock as he climbed. He looked up to see the edges of a dense hedge waving at him, encouraging him along. He made his way toward it, hoping it would provide enough cover once he reached the top. It did. He squeezed himself to the ground and peered out beneath.

  The first thing that struck him was the smell of exotic sweetness, not only in the flowerbeds but in the trees, large fruit-bearing plants now laden. The sound of music rose and fell with the capricious dance of the wind. He recognized the plucking of the tanbur. In and around the trees and plants were a scattering of timber arbors with the largest of them closest to the cliff edge. It was also the one closest to him. Through the whitewashed lattice work, he could see a seat or a bed, nearly as large as the gazebo itself, covered with cushions of exotic silks that glistened in the sunlight.

  It was some kind of paradise, an Eden at the end of the world.

  Elias was about to break cover when a figure on the bed shifted. One of the most striking women he had ever seen raised herself up. Her hair, on first appearances, looked dark but once she moved out into the sun it glowed deep red like the last banked embers of a fire. The woman wore little, a draping of silk here and there in a shade of aqua blue, diaphanous in the light.

  A harem?

  Elias peered as far as he could into the garden. There were no other women he could see, but then he was not close enough to the house itself. He prayed that his strategy was sound – that all their focus had been stopping outsiders from getting in via the walls. He waited a good twenty minutes by his reckoning without seeing another living soul.

  He chanced a dash across open lawn to what appeared to be a stone reservoir. He opened his satchel, to slip a tunic over his clothes and wind a scarf around his head to fashion a turban. It was a weak disguise, one designed to fool only a glancing observer but, then, he didn’t plan to let anyone get close enough to see through it.

  From behind the cistern, he saw numerous entrances into the villa itself through the arched colonnades. He identified the smallest entrance, most likely to be used by the servants. And considering there was also likely to be more servants than lords, he chose the middle entrance that seemed to be part of a main passageway leading right through the center of the building out to the front lawns.

  Inside the building was cooler. Elias took a moment to orient himself. It was clear that much work had been done on enlarging the structure over the past year but evidence of the original, much smaller building remained.

  If this place did belong to one of Selim Omar’s wives, she was more likely to inhabit the newer wings and chances were Ahmed Sharrouf’s library would be in the older sections. Again, only an educated guess. He followed a left hand passage which was obviously much older, more utilitarian and which ran away from the music he heard earlier.

  Elias opened the second door on the right and nearly sank to his knees in gratitude. He had chanced upon Sharrouf’s library, floor to ceiling with shelves and papers, at the first guess. He glanced at a book laid open on a writing slope. It appeared to be a ledger of some kind. Though he spoke rudimentary Arabic, he didn’t read it. But he did recognize a few words – one in particular, Tito, and next to it the word “boy”. Elias placed an explosive shell behind the leg of one of the tables and left the room.

  He would place the remaining two in the house before he left.

  Elias was equally cautious heading out of the library. He saw no one, yet he was struck by the sensation of being watched. He rounded the corner that led to the main passage and came face to face with a woman. He held his breath and waited for her to scream, to sound an alarm, anything than just stare at him with wide, scared eyes.

  The woman was dressed as a servant, a robe of mud brown with a colored veil of the same shade over her hair. Confused for a moment, Elias had thought the woman was a nun, until he remembered where he was.

  Now what could he do? He could hardly silence a woman as he might a man.

  Suddenly, there was the sound of others approaching. The woman glanced back over her shoulder toward the voices and back to him. “Come with me. Quickly!” she said in softly accented Arabic.

  It took Elias a moment to comprehend. “You will not give me up?”

  “No, but come now!” She dashed past him. What choice did he have? He followed.

  She moved as silently as a mouse up worn stone steps to the upper story and into another room. It was home to a veritable rainbow of fabrics.

  The woman turned to him. “This is my Lady Rabia’s dressing room. No one comes here but me. You are safe here for the moment.”

  “Why do you protect me?” he asked.

  “My mistress is cruel. Many people have died at her hand. I hate her. I’d run away if I could.”

  Elias looked at the woman. He had little choice but to roll the dice and trust her word. “You can leave tomorrow if you like. I’ll be back to make this place explode.” He dipped into his satchel and drew out the two remaining canisters of black powder. “With these.”

  She looked at the devices blankly. He was unsure she understood what they were until she spoke. “Bombs?”

  He nodded.

  “You will take me with you afterwards?”

  He nodded again.

  “Then leave one of your bombs here. No one will find it.”

  He slipped a shell behind some clothing. The woman inclined her head as though hearing something.

  “You must go.”

  The woman, little more than a girl really, led the way out of the room, saying nothing as they left the building and slipped through an arbor where Elias stopped briefly to hide the last shell at the base of a tree beside the outer wall. Soon they were standing in the shadows close to the edge of the cliff.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he promised. “Where shall I meet you?”

  “My mistress rests during the noon hours. She expects the servants to be finished with their duties here before she has her morning meal. The best time is when everyone is at prayers. I shall meet you in the small pavilion under that tree.”

  He looked to where she pointed.

  When he looked back, she was gone – as quiet as a little brown mouse.

  Elias wasn’t sure how much he had slept, if at all. The encounter with the servant woman had shaken him. Not because of the close call he’d had, but because it forced him to look directly at the real aim of his mission here. It wasn’t to destroy Ahmed Sharrouf’s records and, through that, disrupt his spy network.

  It was to kill a woman.

  He doubted he would have been able to kill the servant yesterday even to save his own life. If she had screamed and called for help, he probably would have just run. Even now, he could barely believe that he risked trusting her today.

  Still, what choice did he have?

  And what choice other than to kill the woman he now knew to be called Rabia? If he did not, how long would it be before she dispatched another wave of assassins to Sicily?

  And if he and Benjamin could not be found at Villagrazia, there was Morwena and Jonathan’s home in Palermo to destroy, Kit and Sophia’s island of Catallus to attack, and, not only them, but all
his shipmates from the Calliope, potentially exposed by Sharrouf’s records and prime targets for kidnap, torture and murder in the bloody quest to find Selim Omar’s only male heir.

  As Elias rose and prepared himself for the climb back up the cliff, he recalled how he had wept in the arms of the young Liana just a few years ago, haunted by his first experience of killing an armed man face to face. Now, to protect his friends and, most of all, to stop Benjamin from falling into the hands of the corsairs, Elias was getting ready to kill an unarmed woman.

  He wondered if, when gazing at the reflection of Medusa, did Perseus see the woman as well as the monster? Might it have stayed his hand, caused him even a moment’s hesitation, before he beheaded the Gorgon?

  Elias steeled himself and looked up the cliff before him.

  Rabia was a monster, too. He would look her in the face and kill her with his bare hands if necessary. And he wouldn’t hesitate.

  God help him.

  His body ached from the second cliff climb. He wished the task were over. He had the sense that sand was running through the hourglass faster than he thought. The sooner he did what he had to do, the quicker he could be away from Pantelleria and return to his son. The Calliope had to be due to return soon. If there was need to deal with any of Rabia’s confederates later on, at least he would have good men to back him up.

  He made his way to the pavilion; the garden was quiet as promised. Perhaps it was too quiet. He kept himself to the shadows.

  As he waited, he became aware of snatches of raised voices in the house or perhaps on the other side of it. The sounds came to him with the shifting of the wind. Something was wrong.

  He watched a hunch-shouldered woman cross the lawn toward the pavilion. As she moved out of the shade and into the sun, he saw she was wearing brown robes.

  “Sir, are you here?” she whispered. Elias emerged from his hiding place. The woman straightened herself and stood to her full height. This was not the same woman from yesterday.

  At the same time, he heard the sound of swords being unsheathed behind him. The woman swept back the brown veil and exposed her head; it was the woman with the dark red hair he saw yesterday.

  “Welcome Elias Winston Nash. My name is Rabia, widow of Selim Omar, cousin to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Chapter Forty

  The team of horses made its way steadily up the road from Palermo to Villagrazia.

  The hard boards on which she sat were uncomfortable, but that wasn’t the reason why Laura itched for the journey to end.

  Ever since Palermo came into view from the deck of the Calliope, all she could think about was holding Benjamin in her arms, smelling the sweet scent of his freshly-washed hair.

  She closed her eyes, giving up the futile search for a glimpse of Elias’ villa.

  Would Benjamin be crawling now, would he be standing and trying to walk? Laura smiled to herself while, in her mind’s eye, she could see him toddling unsteadily toward her with his arms raised and a toothy grin.

  She would sweep him into her arms and kiss his face over and over, promising she would never leave him again.

  And there, in the villa’s entrance, would be Elias with a wide smile of his own.

  She would tell him she was ready to make them a family, that she would be honored and proud to be his wife. His arms would embrace her and Benjamin both, welcoming them home.

  The horses started to slow as the elevation increased. Kit snapped the reins to make sure they kept up their pace. Laura opened her eyes.

  They were near the village. Another mile to go. Laura felt anticipation rise as they approached Villagrazia.

  Sophia let out a gasp of surprise as two boys, aged about twelve or thirteen years, dashed suddenly across the path right in front of the horses.

  “Whoa!” Kit firmed his grip on the reins to stop the animals from shying.

  Laura watched the lads briefly glance back without breaking their stride as they ran into the woods on the other side of the track. A cloud crossed in front of the sun, plunging the glen into shadow and a shiver went through her.

  Kit shook his head and yelled a curse after them.

  “Idle hands are the devil’s play things,” Kit grumbled. “They shouldn’t be running about when there’s a day’s work to be done.”

  “I know those two boys,” said Laura, more to herself than anyone else. “They were field hands helping Pasquale and Angelo in Elias’ olive grove. The boys helped them look after the horses.”

  “Well, I’ll make sure Elias hears about it.”

  Kit turned the cart down the lane that led to the villa and the brief sense of unease she felt outside the village returned.

  The hedges that Matteo proudly kept trimmed were overgrown.

  Laura smelled the charred wood and ash before they rounded the bend. The villa was nothing more than a blackened shell.

  Before she could react, Kit had already jumped down from the cart, moving swiftly toward the ruins. He cupped his hands and called, “Elias!”

  “Oh my God, Benjamin!”

  “Come on,” Sophia said, climbing down from the cart. “Let’s go look. I’m sure everyone’s safe.”

  Laura walked numbly for the first few steps before reminding herself to breathe.

  On approaching, Laura could see the conflagration was not a recent one. Soot streaked the exposed walls, indicating there had been rain since the fire. Meanwhile, grass and wildflowers had already begun to encroach on the ruins, bright green against the blackened ground.

  Laura accepted Sophia’s hand in hers as they walked around the perimeter. The worst of the damage was near the bedrooms where exterior walls had toppled.

  From the kitchen, where heavy oak roof trusses, charred but intact, poked up at an angle to support a roof that was no longer there, she could see all the way through to the parlor and the terrace that overlooked the grounds.

  Her studio was gone. Erased. All that remained was the shattered stone floor like a scar on the grass where it had stood.

  Kit jogged back toward them, his uneven gait not slowing him down in the slightest.

  “Some of the outbuildings have been torched, too,” he said. “The place is completely deserted.”

  He offered Laura a comforting smile. “I’m sure everyone got out safely. We’ll go back to the village and make inquiries.”

  Laura swallowed and then gave a nod. “Someone would have gotten word to Thomasso,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Sophia agreed. “Jonathan will send someone up to let us know.”

  The sound of hooves drew everyone’s attention.

  “Matteo!”

  The young man dismounted before the horse had come to a stop.

  “Miss Laura! Mr. Kit! The boys said it was you!”

  Laura would have rushed over to the young man, but Kit cut to the chase.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  “Assassins! They tried to take Benjamin!”

  Laura’s stomach flipped – end over end over end. She shivered then felt hot and, for the very first time in her life, she fainted.

  Salty dryness of tears long shed left Laura feeling as wrung out as the damp compress over her eyes. At the sound of a knock on the door, she dragged the cloth off her face. Sophia slipped in and came to her bed.

  “Jonathan and Morwena are here,” she said.

  Laura gasped back a sob. Her son was dead, Elias was dead.

  “Shh, Elias and the baby survived the fire unharmed, but they are not here. Are you strong enough to hear what we know so far?”

  Aided by Sophia, Laura lowered herself to the kitchen chair, mindful of the grim faces of her friends.

  “Laura?” She found herself looking into Jonathan’s face. “Do you recognize this?”

  Threaded through his long, dark fingers was a sinuous gold chain and, sitting in his palm, was an oval locket with a shield cartouche.
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br />   She frowned. Jonathan turned the locket over to show the wafer of ivory bearing a miniature painting of the Cappleman coat of arms.

  Laura gasped at the warped and broken hinge. “The back half of the locket is gone.”

  Jonathan nodded then looked to Kit. Before Laura could wonder about the silent communication between the two men, Morwena handed her another miniature painting. It was on a cheap piece of pine and looked hurriedly dashed off as though the artist was in great haste.

  “This isn’t one of mine,” she said.

  Morwena acknowledged her with a nod. “I know. But I was wondering if you recognized where this is?”

  Laura shook her head.

  “This is a tourist painting from Monreal, about fifteen miles from here. It has one of the most famous of all Palermo’s cathedrals. You have never been there?”

  Again, Laura shook her head.

  “It arrived while we were away. The locket, chain, and this painting wrapped in brown paper. It was addressed to Kit in Elias’ hand. Thomasso said it was delivered by a street urchin but he didn’t stay long enough to say who gave it to him.”

  “Laura?” Kit spoke softly, his eyes kind. She knew she annoyed him sometimes but, right now, he was a friend. A true friend, a brother. “This is what we’ve been able to piece together. Someone sent assassins to take Benjamin. Elias believed the threat would continue while the boy was here, so they’ve gone into hiding. I’m hoping the broken locket and the painting are clues to their whereabouts.”

  “When do we go?”

  He reached out and squeezed her hand.

  “Now, if you feel up to it.”

  *

  Elias didn’t bother to look behind him. If he were Kit, he would have performed an elaborate bow and made some witty remark. Instead, he raised his arms over his head and laced his fingers together.