His hand pulled free from her leg and his face fell like the hem of her gown. “Prefer…” he sighed.
“You deny yourself the pleasures of my flesh as punishment as well?” She stroked the curly hairs on his chest through the open laces of his tunic. “Tonight may be the best time. I noticed our friends chose to leave us alone in this room.”
He removed her hand from his shirt. “No.”
“Then tell me what I must write to Lord Kemberley,” Nadira conceded defeat and went back to her seat at the table.
He waited for her to pick up the quill. After a longer pause, he said in a low voice, “Tell him his son is dead, buried in Barcelona. Tell him I am on my way to Istanbul and that I plan to avenge my brother’s murder before I return to England. Tell him as long as Massey lives, I am dead inside.”
Nadira busily scratched his words, mumbling, “That is rather poetic, coming from you. ‘Fine words’, indeed.”
He rubbed his face again. “You have taught me to think about words.”
She finished writing and looked up again. “More?”
“No. But I will need you to write to my sister’s husband. He keeps my lands in my absence. I need him to send the next rents to Istanbul. Have Angelo in Pera hold them. He will know who that is.” Montrose paused. “I also need you to write to Venice where my rents are now. They also need to go to Angelo.”
Nadira had long wondered where the money was coming from. She waited for him to compose his thoughts and glanced up at him when he took too long. He roused himself from his memories. “You will enjoy Angelo’s villa and gardens.”
“Will we be staying there?” she asked him.
“I always stay with him when I am in Istanbul. His hospitality is generous and his company informative. He is a great source of news. An incorrigible gossip. His servant, Thedra, dances…”
Nadira looked up from her paper. “Dances?”
She was surprised to see some color rise to his cheeks before he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “My sister’s husband. Please.” He waved a hand at her quill.
She carefully cut the paper at the end of Lord Kemberley’s letter with William’s scissors and started at the top again. “What is his name?”
“James Radcliff. Send greetings to my sister, Catherine, et cetera.” Nadira formed the basic greeting. Montrose continued. “Tell him Richard is dead. I would rather he hear it from my letter than have him and my sister shocked by my father’s fury. At least they will be prepared for him, as I know the old man will immediately travel there to abuse me to them further.” He made a face.
Nadira obeyed, the quill waving over her hand as she wrote.
“And tell them I have acquired plans for a water mill I saw cleverly constructed in Bavaria. I want him to find a place in the river suited for a mill and begin collecting stones. Tell him to start looking around the deep hole at the curve of the big rock.” She looked up, raised an eyebrow.
“Your brother’s death and a construction project in the same letter?”
“Just tell him.”
Nadira bent to her work. “These plans?” She knew they were not in their baggage.
“Beniste has them. He is sending them.”
She wrote.
He paced back and forth, waving his hands in the air. “Send them my best regards, et cetera.”
“It is finished then,” she said. He gave her the information she needed to have them delivered properly and handed her his signet ring for pressing onto the wax. She finished her work and set the folded letters aside for the morning. “And?”
“That is all.”
“Will you answer a question for me?” Something had been bothering Nadira for weeks, but events and situations kept her from asking.
“If I can.”
“How is it that your estate is separate from your father’s? In England land passes to the eldest son, does it not? You are the younger.”
“It does. Richard was the heir to my father’s estate, Kemberley. Now I am, as much as that must enrage my father.” He rubbed the short stubble of his beard. “My own lands are a gift from a duke. I saved his life in a battle. He gave me a farm and a title. That is all.”
“A ‘farm’?” She puzzled. This was another English word she did not know.
“Land, with tenants. Most of my land is in sheep and oats. There is a rather small house…”
Nadira said, “I think you are being over modest, my lord. I shall ask Alisdair. I am certain to get a much better story.”
He shook his head. “You will get a better story. It will not be accurate.”
She prepared the bed for sleeping. “Then you can tell me the truth. There was a duke, a battle. How old were you when you saved his life? How long ago?” She climbed in and made herself comfortable. He put out the candle and followed her, covering them with the blanket.
“Maybe twenty-five. It was 1485.”
“What was the battle about?” She settled into the curve of his body.
“What are they always about? Power. Two men wanted to be king. Now one of them is.”
“How was it you were there?”
“My father is Talbot’s man. When he calls for men and arms my father sends them. He sent me.”
“And Richard?”
He nuzzled the back of her neck and his words were soft. “Richard wanted to go as a chronicler, but my lord hoped he might take up arms and bring him glory, so he sent him as well. It looks good for a man to say to his lord, ‘I am sending my two sons to honor you with their service.’ It looks very good, indeed.”
“But Richard had no intention of fighting.” Nadira did not phrase it as a question. She knew it was true.
“Of course not. He wanted to be there where the excitement was; he wanted to write about it. He wanted to meet the men involved, talk to their clerks. See the women.”
“Women?” Nadira twisted in his arms until she was facing him. “Women in an army?”
Montrose laughed quietly. “You have never been to war.”
“No. I hope never to be. But women?”
“Plenty of women. If you have enough coins. Richard did.”
“Not fighting women, then.” She sighed with understanding. “I was confused for a moment.”
Montrose buried his face in her hair. In her ear he said, “Some were very feisty. I would say some were definitely ‘fighting women’.”
“Bah. Not what I meant. So you went. Alisdair and Garreth, too?”
“Yes.”
“And where was this battle?”
“Bosworth. I had the luck to be between His Grace and a bolt from a crossbow.” Montrose kissed her cheek. “It earned me a small farm far to the north and a minor title.”
“An arrow bought you a farm.” Nadira went over the map of his body in her mind. Yes. She remembered a large raised scar the size of her hand in the shape of a star below his left shoulder. In the darkness she slid her hand over his side and around his back until she could feel it.
“Not an arrow. A bolt. They are different. Hmmm,” he said, “There. You have found it. There, under your hand, is the making of a lord.”
“Surely you were wearing mail,” Nadira asked softly, exploring the scar with her fingers. “This is rather large.”
“The chirurgeon enlarged it to remove the point. I was wearing plate; this bolt was shot from very close range. Went between the plates where they joined my shoulder with a leather strap. Not from the enemy, either.”
“There is a story here. Getting you to tell it is like pulling teeth.”
“We were on a small rise over the fields. The duke was dismounted and not in his battle armor. He was going over a map with his captains. I was assigned to his personal guard. His Grace gestured behind him for someone to bring his horse that he might return to his tent and ready himself for the coming fight. I took the animal’s reins and as he stood to accept them, the bolt took me from behind. I fell forward onto the duke, knocking him to the ground.�
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She pulled back and tried to see him in the darkened room. “No. Truly?”
“Oh yes. I assure you, I thought I was dying. Blood filled my mouth and throat, and poured from my nose. With every breath I struggled for air. I cannot describe the pain…”
“Ah, do not try.” Nadira had her hand to her throat, imagining the wound. “It pierced your lung, then.”
“Yes, and it felt worse when they pulled it out later. His Grace was certain I would die, and called for the priest to come. I was given last rites.”
“Last rites?”
“Something men do when they think the end is near. As you can clearly see, I survived. His Grace the duke considered my recovery a miracle, and since the bolt had been intended for him, he saw me as proof of God’s favor and the answer to his many prayers that he was backing the right man for king.”
“I see,” she murmured. “Was he?”
“Yes. King Richard was slain, Henry Tudor took the field, became king. His Grace was greatly honored with many rewards. I was greatly honored with a farm.”
“And the assassin?”
“Found and cut down.”
“And now I understand that strange wheezing sound that echoes your snores,” she teased.
He nodded. “I get short-winded sometimes, but there are no other lasting effects.”
She remembered when bandits in the mountains attacked them, and after he saved her life how he leaned so heavily on the pommel of his sword, gasping. And near Rome after his fight with the French soldiers in the empty field. He had gone down on one knee that time, breathing so hard she could hear him from the road. She turned her head and lay her ear against his chest, listening to his breathing and the beat of his heart.
After a moment he said softly, “What do you hear, little one? What does my body say to you?”
“It says ‘Let me sleep, that I may travel easier on the morrow’.”
“That is not what I hear.” He pressed himself gently against her.
“Shall we listen to that?” She responded with an encouraging squeeze.
He kissed her on the top of her head and cupped her breast with one large hand. “No,” he answered. “My body is not my master.” He paused, stroking her as tenderly as one would touch a bird. “As neither am I yours.”
Chapter Five
The next day they set out on their journey to the sea, where a ship waited for them to cross the wide straights between the Romans and the Turks. Derrick left them for Venice and Lionel for somewhere unspecified that Corbett would not tell. Only Calvin remained of the Templar’s retinue, and he was tasked with the care of DiMarco.
Nadira sat firmly behind Montrose on his horse. Behind her rode Garreth, and behind him, William. DiMarco sat one of the packhorses, his hands bound to the saddle and his horse bound to Calvin. The book and the chest of vials were safely packed in straw within thick leather satchels on either side of Corbett. Nadira caught a glimpse of the old knight every now and then when the road curved around the gentle hills. In the distance she could see the mountains that broke up the horizon and met the sky with smoky blue hues.
The road was wide and well-maintained. They met many other travelers both coming and going from the great city. It was still early in the year for the farmers, and the surrounding fields were poised between the wet end of winter and the fresh start of spring. It was muddy going in some places, and Nadira clutched Montrose with both hands when their horse slipped and skidded.
“Careful,” she murmured to the animal, and hoped he heard her. A deep ditch flanked the road and Nadira did not want to end up in its cold waters.
She heard Montrose chuckle deeply. “He will not go down.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
Montrose squeezed his knees and leaned to the right. The horse took a few steps toward the center of the road where the footing was more firm. “Better?” he asked her.
She sighed. “Better.”
The others had moved toward the middle of the road as well. She saw Corbett’s horse with the fat satchels that held their treasures just ahead of them.
She longed to touch the book again and look at the beautiful glass vials with their mysterious contents of many colors. Corbett had shown them to her before packing them away.
“Do not touch them. Promise me here and now that you will not touch them.”
She had promised reluctantly. She sighed and Montrose turned his head toward her.
“Are you weary from the ride?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Why do you sigh?”
“I am at all times impatient. It is a flaw in my character.”
He turned back to the road. “You wish that the whole world would whirl as fast as your thoughts. I know.”
“That may be true.”
“You have flown. Now to walk is to have you tied to the earth, fluttering like a wounded sparrow.”
She smiled though she knew he could not see her. “How very lyrical, my lord. I begin to see that Richard was not the only brother with the heart and soul of a poet.”
She heard him snort, but knew he was pleased.
Corbett chose their campsite early in a copse of cypress above a slow-moving river. He selected a dry spot near the road, but above and behind an outcropping of grey boulders that would hide them from traffic. He suggested mildly that Montrose take his hooks and lines and go with Garreth and Alisdair down the hill to spend the afternoon fishing. None of the men gave argument and Nadira watched them laughing and joking as they made their way down the steep bank to the river. She cast a sly glance at the knight. He nodded toward DiMarco sitting beneath the tall cypress and joined him there as soon as the Englishmen were out of sight. William hovered nervously until Corbett sent him for firewood with a few coins. Just down the road a cluster of plaster houses with red tile roofs promised some food and fuel. Nadira imagined the farmers might also sell some fine bread and cheese to a hungry friar.
“We shall have some privacy,” he murmured to her as William made his way toward the houses. “Let us do this thing quickly. We will discover whether we need the Grimoire or if you are sufficiently skilled without it. Calvin will stand watch and warn us should we be disturbed. Are you certain you can travel without an elixir? Did the Hermetica grant you this boon?”
“I have once without wishing for it. This will be my first attempt at instigating a journey.”
“Lie here, then. I will guard you.”
Nadira arranged herself carefully, trusting that the old knight would watch over her body. She relaxed and projected her intent into the blue sky above, then closed her eyes.
All problems can be solved, all hurts healed, she told herself. This must be true, else why do we have minds to think? Why not live as animals do, day to day thinking only of food and water and warmth? As people we are given the tool to solve the puzzles of life. And death. She frowned. That is the key. The fear of death causes so much pain. What if this fear disappeared like a mist warmed by the sun? Would it ease grief? Remove thoughts of vengeance? Perhaps.
She brought the image of the Hermetica to mind, and held it there, reminding herself of the power of its knowledge. Seek ye the river’s edge it had told her. I want to cross the river, she thought. Help me.
The veil of darkness lifted from her eyes and she saw green pastures spread out before her to a far blue horizon. She blinked several times to bring the colors into focus and tried to recognize the place. She asked, where am I? But there was no answering voice, no whoosh sending her to an explanation. I have not tasted an elixir today, perhaps that is why this feels different. She turned herself slowly in a circle to take in the panorama of this field and as she turned there was a flash of movement to her left and there appeared a man, smiling.
Nadira reached out to determine if he was merely an apparition or an actual being. Her hand touched solid flesh and the man laughed aloud with joy. A denizen, then.
“I am Nadira,” she said slowl
y, knowing that all languages are understood in this place.
The man looked her over and his straight white teeth parted with a gleaming smile. “Do you not recognize me, Nadira of Barcelona?”
She blinked again, as this sometimes helped bring clarity to her visions. He was a handsome man in his middle years, clean-shaven, his hair a very light brown and cut in the style of the university students. He was taller than she and slender. His eyes were a vivid icy blue and his face nearly beamed with happiness. He wore the clothing of the northerners, very like Lord Montrose and Alisdair when they were not in battle dress. She tipped her head to the side trying to place him. Not one of the monks from Coix. Not a merchant. Not a ship’s captain.
He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “I shall help you.” At once his face took on a sadder countenance, and as she watched it seemed as though his features slowly changed from fair and whole to darkly bruised and broken. His lips swelled and his teeth shattered. His blue eyes faded as the lids swelled shut and purpled as she watched. Nadira recoiled, her hand to her mouth in horror before the realization opened her eyes wide.
“Richard!”
Immediately his features returned to their wholesome beauty, pink and healthy, his teeth straight and white. “Ah, my little princess. You know me now.”
“I wish I had known you before.” She opened her arms for him and he embraced her, squeezing her and kissing her firmly on her cheek before releasing her again, his hands still on her shoulders, looking at her.
“You are as lovely as I remember, though your hair is shorter now. Where is that long braid? What is it with these strands?” He fingered her hair, letting it fall back on her shoulders.
“Your brother carries that braid inside his brigandine,” she answered before looking around her. “And sometimes in his boot. Tell me how it is you are here. Or perhaps, where is here? Am I in the land of the dead? Is this paradise?” She looked around with more interest now. She had achieved what she had desired. She had traveled without an elixir.
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