Rogue Sword Read online

None heard him above the war whoops. Orio’s burly form got almost to the stairs. Pikes and axes seethed behind him.

  Then the crossbows spoke.

  A sailor, running, took a quarrel through the breast. The force raised him on his toes. He seemed to dance before he flopped over backward. His pike clattered down on top of him. Another man cursed, his collarbone shivered apart. A third fell with a pierced belly. The charge broke. The Catalan archers put down their bows, drew sword, and made a rush.

  “God send the right!” En Jaime de Caza led them. No mistaking the tall spare form, the pointed beard and graying temples. He wore formal black clothes, but a shield was on his arm, its bearings weirdly gay-colored.

  Orio met him. Their blades crossed. Sparks sleeted. Deadly fast, the rich hom eluded the captain’s awkward defense. Red streaks appeared on Orio’s face and arms. He turned and ran. His crew bolted with him, into the garden. Half a dozen of them lay dead or dying below the stairs. En Jaime took his own seven men back up onto the portico.

  Lucas called from the hedges: “Will you parley?”

  En Jaime’s panther-like ease of posture turned rigid. “Who is that?” he answered uncertainly.

  “Will you talk, Jaime?”

  “Yes. I will. Hold your fire, lads. Come forth, out there.”

  Lucas came into view. En Jaime’s weapon drooped in his grasp. “Is that indeed you?” he said, so low that the wind in the trees nearly smothered it. He came down the stairs and met Lucas on the flagstones.

  They regarded each other, unspeaking. The moon vanished again. Lucas was glad of the dark across his countenance.

  “I would not have expected you at the head of this gang,” said the Catalan dully.

  “I had no choice,” said Lucas. “Is Djansha here?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucas had never before been humble. “Father,” he said, “I am not worthy.”

  En Jaime pondered until, with a sad little laugh: “I believe I understand. The Venetian is here too, did you know? He came by horse from Rhedestos this very evening. I had delayed and objected as long as possible, but En Berenguer Rocafort finally ordered me, on my oath as a soldier, to give the man his chattel. You see, Reni offered us valuable trade agreements.”

  “Would you indeed give her up to him? You promised me--”

  En Jaime’s interruption came strident. “I tell you, I was under orders! And the welfare of the Company was involved! I did all I could. Tried to buy her myself, bid ten prices, but Reni wouldn’t sell. He said she’d taken the fancy of a nobleman in Constantinople whose good will was worth more to him than all my gold. I knew you were fond of her, but not that you cared this much. It was doubtful that you were even alive. Is the life of a pet concubine so bad?” “Gasparo lies. He wants her simply as the means of his revenge on me.”

  Breath hissed between En Jaime’s teeth. “Impossible!”

  “Why else should I come to you like this, you who were always my friend? I could only get a crew by promising them loot. Djansha’s life, and our child’s, are worth more than some boxes of metal in your cellars.”

  “I didn’t know! How could I? I’d have smuggled her away if--Were he not my guest, I’d kill that fat ruffian!”

  “Well, then, yield to us. We’ll do no further harm, only take the girl and the treasure and begone. I’ll repay you someday, somehow.”

  The wind skirled.

  “Well?” Lucas’ voice cracked over.

  “No, I cannot.”

  “In the name of mercy--!”

  “Two faithful men are missing; slain, I have no doubt. They trusted me as their lord. The treasures of all my people are stored here, as well as my own. I cannot betray them.”

  “But let me have Djansha, and enough of your own wealth to satisfy the corsairs, and--”

  “Now you are asking me to commit treason,” said En Jaime. He drew a signet ring from his finger, put it back on, drew it off, put it on. “I’m to compromise our honor by yielding with no more fight than this, and our interests by surrendering one person who could buy supplies needed by our entire host. . . . No. If you don’t care about me, Lucas, or my name, remember that I too have a woman and a child, who must also bear the consequences. The gold you may have, everything I possess. But as for the Circassian, all I can do is appeal once more to Rocafort.”

  “You know how little can be expected from that! You spoke of smuggling her away. Could you not--”

  “Reni has already taken formal possession. He’s returning to Gallipoli and his ship in the morning. I believe he really is going on to Constantinople, even if his tale was a lie. But perhaps you could take him in the Marmora?”

  “How should I persuade my men? They’ll go straight home if they get the plunder, and slit my gullet if they don’t. Jaime, you must let me have her, now! What’s all your damned murdering Company worth, against an evil such as this?”

  “Silence!” the Catalan yelled. “Who are you to preach, you and all your faithlessness?”

  It was like a blow across the eyes.

  “I am a captain of the Grand Company, sworn to the service of Aragon and my own honor,” said En Jaime. “We do not yield.”

  Lucas found slow, clumsy words: “But I am in the service of my lady.”

  A warmth returned to the knight. “We’ve sent a horseman off to Muntaner,” he said. “Troops should arrive in two or three hours. Your rabble can’t take the house before then. Forget the woman. I’ve had her christened, her soul is safe, you’ve done what you can. Escape now while you’re able.”

  “I never was able.”

  “Nor I. Well--” The moon came back. En Jaime extended his right hand. “So be it. I was happy to know you, Lucas.”

  “And I.” The other went to his knees. “Master, give me your blessing.”

  The Catalan touched his helmet. They went their separate ways.

  Lucas found the corsairs huddled behind the stables. Orio lumbered from their indistinct mass. “Well?” said the captain. “Will they make terms?”

  “No. They’ll stand us off. Help is expected from Gallipoli.”

  Oaths ripped through the wind. A few weapons were pointed at Lucas. “By the guts of Mahound,” said Orio, “if you’ve led us here and gotten our friends killed for nothing--”

  “Be still!” Lucas lifted his sword. Moonlight touched his mail; he stood as if clad in gray ice. The pack retreated from him, bristling.

  “Your own slewfootedness brought this trouble on you,” he told them. “But we’ve still two hours or more to capture the house, load the gold, and put out to sea. If you’ll heed me, we can do it. Otherwise, you can skulk off without me, and Satan gobble you down!”

  “Well,” sulked Orio, “what d’you propose?”

  Lucas went around the corner and looked across the yard to the villa. “Stout doors and shutters,” he mused. “We outnumber the Catalans three or four to one, but they can defend any entrance with ease. Wherever we attack, even if it be on several fronts at once, a few crossbowmen can shoot us from the windows. Or they might sally. We couldn’t stand against them in open combat between ordered ranks.”

  “If you’re through proving how we can’t get in, would your majesty please to tell us how we can?”

  Lucas ignored that. All shutters had now been closed; the house was a pale block, with golden streaks where light seeped through cracks in the wooden panels. Behind those walls, Djansha lay. And Gasparo. Lucas knew he was going to get in. As if it were some problem in planetary motions, he calculated how.

  “Listen to me,” he said.

  He asked a few questions and gave rapid commands. Then he took a pair of helpers into the stables. The air inside was warm, full of hay and horse smells. Briefly, dizzily, he was a boy again, riding across the Asiatic plains . . . summer, the sky enormous, raining sunlight, mile upon mile of grasslands rippling in the wind, like an ocean, like a heaven of stars, for the cornflowers were blooming and all the earth was blue with them. . . . Gruntin
g and swearing, they bridled a dozen animals and led them out, strung together in a fan-shaped formation by cords between the harness.

  A clangor lifted from the front side of the house, where Orio with ten men had started a diversionary assault. The horses skittered about, neighed and snorted. Lucas spoke to them, stroked a neck, smoothed a mane. “So, so, so. Easy, boy. There’s a good boy. So-o-o-o.” With a practiced tug on the lead horse’s headstall, he brought them up to the villa.

  The side door he had in mind opened directly on ground level, below the verandah, with the vaults behind it. He was almost there when a quarrel whined from the loophole in a window shutter. He laid a rope’s end across the nearer animals and got them in front of the door.

  “Break it down!” he ordered.

  The two sailors’ axes thudded. The horses shifted about, controlled by Lucas at the center of their arc. One fell dead, shaking the ground. The crossbow bolt had gone through its heart. “Hurry, you apes!”

  The door sagged. A corsair threw his weight against it. Four Catalans blocked the entrance. Their bows snapped. Lucas had already ducked. The lead horse reared in agony. Lucas had a flicker of regret--but Djansha was in that house. He dodged under the bellies, among the hoofs, till he stood behind the herd. “Hee-ya!” His whip flew.

  The horses were driven forward, into the cellar. The Catalans had to step aside or be trampled. Lucas came immediately behind. His sword flamed at the nearest man. They bounded through the vaults, seeking each other’s lives. The defender made an awkward cut. Before he could recover, Lucas’ point slipped into his neck. Not waiting to see if the wound was fatal, Lucas hurried back to the entrance. The main body of sailors, hidden in the garden, had rushed as soon as the door was forced. Most of the animals were still outside, milling about, offering cover for that dash. The pirates got into the vaults and overwhelmed the guards posted. They were already up the stairs, pouring onto the main floor.

  Lucas followed. Lamps and candles seemed blindingly bright after the dimness outside. Silver, gold, silk and velvet, glowed in rooms where men trampled back and forth, thrusting, hewing, slipping in blood and going down under axes. Taken from the rear, the soldiers at the main portal were forced to turn about to fight. Orio’s detachment chopped away that door and fell on them from behind.

  Lucas glared around the atrium. One exit, leading to the entrance hall, boiled with combat. Orio’s heavy sword rose and fell, battering down the defense of a man-at-arms who retreated over the blood-soaked carpet. An Almugavare stood above a slain pirate, defying three others to meet his knife. But they fell on him from three sides and killed him. In this situation, the Catalan discipline was of no avail; brute numbers smashed them.

  An archway on the left showed a corridor where En Jaime and four men held fast. The rich hom’s sword flashed and sang. It was beautiful to behold him. A clot of seamen made little snarling rushes, heard the steel whistle, and retreated again. He saw Lucas beyond them, and must have thought his old attendant was about to intervene. For he saluted once with his sword, then sprang from his defensible position, out into the middle of the corsairs.

  He does not wish that I should be his slayer, thought Lucas.

  It seemed far away, not very important. He ran down the opposite hall. “Djansha!”

  Only the racket of battle answered him. At the end of the passage was the bedchamber once given her. Presumably a man of Gasparo’s had been stationed outside, but was now in the fight. Lucas flung the door open. Light seeped wanly into the room.

  First he noticed her loosened hair. It turned the light copper. She wore a thin shift; he could see how she had gained bulk, but those curves brought a tenderness to him such as he had never known before. Her face had thinned. She sat on the floor, leaning against the couch, ankles bound together with rawhide--runaway slave!

  “Djansha,” he whispered.

  She could not speak, only look at him. She tried to rise, sank down again, shuddered through her whole body. “L-l-lucas,” she said like a prayer. He trod forward.

  Her eyes went beyond him. She gasped. He spun on his heel.

  Gasparo Reni stood in the door. He was dressed for battle, his ungainly form helmeted and corseleted. A sword was at his waist and a cocked crossbow in his hands. “Drop your weapon,” he said quietly.

  Lucas moved to put his body in front of Djansha. “Drop it, I say, or I’ll kill you. And then her.”

  The sword fell to the carpet.

  With an almost holy light in his eyes, Gasparo breathed, “This much I never dared pray for.”

  His bow pointed unwaveringly at Lucas’ breast. This close, it would spit a quarrel through any armor ever forged.

  “I helped the defense,” Gasparo said. “My men and I were stationed at the rear entrance. We thought you were simple pirates. When you broke in at the front, we ran to defend it. But I glimpsed you going this way. There is indeed a just God.”

  Lucas made a step in his direction. “Stay where you are!” warned Gasparo. “I’ll shoot if you don’t.”

  The coldness in Lucas deepened. He saw this room--the folds of a drape, a crack in the plaster, the slightly obtuse angle of a corner--with supernatural clarity. He was not afraid. There seemed no emotion in him at all, except the will that Djansha should live. If he could prolong this talking, something might happen.

  “Won’t you shoot anyway?” he taunted.

  “Oh, yes. But I want you to hate me first. So that you’ll die not only unshriven, but in the sin of hatred,” Gasparo explained earnestly. “Let me therefore explain what’ll happen to the woman after you are dead.”

  “You’ll die too. The corsairs will have this place in minutes.”

  “They’ll take ransom for me. I know their breed. Now as to yonder slut of yours, I won’t have much time. But I do have a sharp knife. So--”

  Djansha sprang from the floor.

  Lucas knew, without time to reason, that she had cut her bonds with his sword while Gasparo’s attention was diverted. The weapon was in her hands as she flung herself in front of her man. She threw it at Gasparo.

  The blade clattered across his legs. He tripped. The bow fired. Lucas was already falling, arms around Djansha to drag her with him.

  The bolt grazed his helmet. A crash went through his head, like a gong in Cathay. Darkness and meteors whirled upward.

  Gasparo drew his sword. Lucas sprawled on the floor. Djansha wriggled free of his limp embrace. She yanked out his dagger. Gasparo raised his weapon above Lucas’ neck. Djansha pounced. The knife entered Gasparo’s throat.

  His blade fell. He pawed at the steel in him. Blood pumped forth, splashing across his hands. He buckled, went on all fours, down on his belly. With one red finger, he traced a cross. The life went out of him.

  Djansha said like winter: “You would have killed my lord.” When Lucas sat up, she knelt by him and the tears broke loose.

  He held her close. “My darling, my darling.” He shook his head, which ached but was otherwise clear again, and felt the dent in his helmet. She aided him to his feet. He picked up his own sword. For a little while he regarded Gasparo’s body.

  “I think we are even now,” he said. “Let us forgive each other, as I hope Moreta forgave us both.”

  Turning to Djansha, he kissed her with enormous gentleness. “Dress yourself warmly,” he told her, “then wait here. I’ll come for you soon.”

  “But you have been gone so long!”

  “Wait, I say. Afterward we’ll have all our lifetimes.”

  He left the room and went back along the hall.

  The fight was over. The Catalans lay dead among a heavy toll of their enemies. Orio’s jubilant men didn’t care. They still had enough to get their ship home; and so much the more loot for the survivors! Most of them were already at plunder. It was a relief to Lucas that no women were about. En Jaime must have sent them beyond the wall, to the cottages, at the first sign of trouble, and now the victors would not have time to look for them. />
  Astonishingly, the rich hom remained. He sat in a chair, blood dripping from his scalp, staining the fine black clothes. Two pikemen guarded him. Lucas wondered in a dull, exhausted way whether to be glad for him or not.

  Orio jerked a thumb at the prisoner. “He was a mucking tough one,” said the captain. “But plainly enough, he’s worth a pile o’ ransom. So the men clubbed him down instead o’ killing him. What d’you think we can get?”

  “Nothing,” said Lucas. “He goes free.”

  “What? Look here, you--”

  “Silence,” said Lucas without emphasis. Orio’s mouth closed.

  En Jaime climbed toilsomely to his feet and leaned on the chair back. “No,” he muttered. “I do not yield.”

  “There’s no question of surrender, Jaime,” said Lucas. “Take a horse and sword. Go in honor.”

  “And afterward?”

  “You fought as long as any man could. None can blame you. As for us, we’ll be gone in an hour. I . . . I’ll try to pay you back what I’m robbing.”

  The dark head lifted. “You steal nothing, Lucas. My men are fallen, so I their lord have disposition of their treasure, as well as my own. I give it to you, freely, a gift.”

  “Oh, Jaime!”

  The Catalan advanced unsteadily into the room, walking on blood and among his dead warriors, who stared at him. Lucas held out a timid right hand. En Jaime took it in his own.

  “I’ve thought much since you fled, falsely accused by my nation and my Church,” said the rich hom. “I kept remembering my vows when first I was made a knight, and then remembering what the Grand Company has done. And now this--We, who made the world afraid, brought low for the sake of a slave girl! I think God is angry.” With a bewildered hurt: “But how did we fail Him?”

  Lucas could not bring himself to answer. En Jaime nodded. The madness and the nobleness of Catalonia spoke: “You would say that we were unjust and unmerciful. But do you really believe that nothing more is required of man than . . . than kindness?”

  “I do not know,” said Lucas.

  “I cannot believe so. And yet I cannot think what else there may be. Everything I imagine seems false. I’m only certain that the truth is not here.”