Rogue Sword Read online

  Hugh skipped from the point, raised his staff, and struck at the other man’s head. The fellow brought his glaive up barely in time to ward off the skull-cracking blow. Then they were at it, wood banging on steel, up and down the dusky street.

  The wounded Venetian slumped with a groan. Lucas went after his fallen sword. When he had it, he saw Gasparo Reni stumble toward him, blood running from the slashed arm but weapon gripped in the left hand. Behind the merchant, a crowd had formed, boiling from tenements to watch and yell and strip the fallen.

  “What are you doing?” protested Lucas. “Who do you think I am?”

  “Lucco, the Cretan bastard.” It was a hoarse and horrible wheezing from that half-seen bulk. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Lucas raised sword, wondering frantically what to do about a disabled man who wouldn’t stop.

  Brother Hugh smacked his opponent’s blade with a twist that sent it spinning from the hand. “Now,” said the knight with renewed cheerfulness, “for the good of your soul and the purging of noxious humors, here is medicine.” A few brisk whacks landed on head and shoulders. The Venetian wailed and ran. Hugh approached Gasparo and disarmed him with one deft blow of the staff.

  The crowd moved closer, jabbering. Lucas saw them as a single mass in the chill, quickly falling twilight. Here and there a tattered individual stood out at the forefront. Then somewhere behind, loud, imperious, a voice shouted, “Make way!” and there came the iron tramp of fighting men.

  Gasparo sat down and covered his eyes.

  Hugh glanced at Lucas. “The Varangians,” he said. “My mission would suffer if they arrested me.”

  “I wouldn’t find it very useful, either.” Lucas leaned on his newly acquired sword and panted.

  Hugh clasped his shoulder. It was hard to see, night was so near between these high walls, though the sky was still pale above; but Lucas thought the Englishman’s look was searching. “We must talk further about this,” said Hugh. “Best we separate now, I think. Do you remember where my lodgings are? Come there tomorrow after the hour of nones. Until then, Dominus vobiscum”

  His staff thumped loudly on the stones as he limped off, melting at once into the crowd.

  Lucas swirled his cloak around so it hung from the left shoulder and concealed the sword he bore in that hand. Sidestepping Gasparo Reni, who sat shuddering with unpracticed sobs, he moved down a street opposite to the approaching watchmen. Bodies fetid with sweat and garlic resisted him, as if he breasted a river. Finally he broke free, turned a corner, and stopped to catch his breath.

  A slender form in a hooded cloak paused beside him. He realized with astonishment and some dismay that the slave girl had followed. And then . . . why not, he thought, the headiness of victory still upon him. He took her hand. It felt soft, trembling a little but closing fingers tightly around his own. “Come,” he muttered. “This way. I don’t know these alleys, but I’d hazard this is our general direction.”

  They groped through lanes which became pitchy as night approached. Finally they stumbled into a courtyard with enough starlight to show heaped trash and low buildings. By standing precariously on two barrels, Lucas was able to chin himself onto a roof. There he, looked across a city turning from black to gray and white, as the moon rose out of Asia. From the North Star and the gleam of water, he got his bearings. As he sprang down again, the girl huddled close to him. “Rhomaizeis?” he asked. When there was no response, he inquired if she spoke Venetian, then Genoese.

  “A little, Messer,” she said to that. Her voice was low and pleasant to hear.

  Lucas was relieved. The two patois were not so different that he could not be fluent in both, even after a lapse of years. He continued merrily, humming a bawdy French chanson. With a sword in his hand and a woman at his side, he felt able to deal with any number of robbers whom the noise might attract.

  But there was no incident. He got lost a few times, in a tangle of streets two thousand years old, but after an hour they reached his hostel. Avoiding the walled quarter which the Venetians of Constantinople inhabited, he had found a cheap place in the slums of the Phanar district. There he passed himself off as a sailor from the Morea: admittedly under a Frankish overlord, but nonetheless a Greek. Venetians were so hated here that he would probably have been murdered if the truth were known. They had brought about the sack of the city, a hundred years ago, and the establishment of that Latin monarchy which it had taken a lifetime to overthrow. Nor had their subsequent behavior endeared them to the Empire. Only four years back, the fleet of Giustiniani had come harrying to extract an indemnity. The Genoese showed equal arrogance, having even turned Galata across the Horn into a fortified city of their own; but they remained Byzantine allies, anyway.

  The inn was a mean building, crouched under the mountainous ancient wall of Constantine, but the moon stood high now and somehow gave it beauty. A few oarsmen were drinking by firelight in the common room. Lucas stopped to borrow a lamp and buy a crock of wine from the landlord, then went on to his chamber with the girl. A good-natured cheer followed him.

  He closed the door behind them. The room was a mere cubicle, with cracked plaster and moldy straw on the floor. From the Cathayans Lucas had learned that it was not unhealthy to sleep with open windows. He put the lamp on a shelf, threw back the shutter and let in the moonlit air.

  Only then did he look at the girl. She had drawn her cloak tight and she shivered as they came in. Now her back straightened. With a movement of decision, she flung off the garment.

  His lips formed a soundless whistle.

  She was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, but tall. Later she would gain the fullest form of womanhood; as yet she was slender in waist and flanks, long in the legs, her white neck almost childlike. But the small breasts rose firmly upward, lifting the fabric of a plain linen gown. Her face was oval, with a pert nose and a mouth with gentle curves. Under arched brows, her eyes seemed enormous, silver-blue between smoky lashes. Auburn hair, streaming thickly past her shoulders to her waist, glowed in the lamplight.

  Impulsively, Lucas swept off his bonnet and bowed.

  A ghost of a smile touched her. “No, Messer,” she demurred in her lame Genoese. “I am the one who should--” She was about to prostrate herself before him. He caught her around the middle and held her. A slow blush went upward from her bosom. He let her go again, but felt a delighted grin crease his cheeks.

  “Well, this proves virtue is indeed rewarded,” he said. “Assuming that I have been virtuous. Who are you, besides the Queen of Elfland?”

  “Djansha.” She began to tremble once more.

  “That sounds Circassian. Are you?”

  “So you call us.” Quick pride lifted her head. “We say the Adygei. My father was Aoublaa of the Chipakou.” He knew those wild mountaineers in the Caucasus had long furnished the most high-priced slaves. To calm her, he said merely, “I am Lucas Greco, of nowhere in particular,” and filled a cup for her from the wine crock. “Welcome, Djansha.”

  She gulped thirstily. He refilled the cup, took a few swallows, gave her the rest, and sat down on the floor, looking quizzically up at her.

  “I’m not certain of the best thing to do,” he said. “My impulses have often gotten me into trouble.”

  She spilled half the wine, staining her dress as if with blood, and cried: “You will not give me back to him?”

  “Um-m-m . . . there’s a question of law, you know.” Lucas scratched his head. “Where were you going?”

  She stared out the window. “He said to a feast. And afterward, he thought, a brothel.” She drained the cup in a draught, picked up the crock, and shakily helped herself.

  Lucas nodded. “A vile business! “

  She said something in her own language. He raised inquiring brows. She snarled the meaning: “May Shible the Just smite them with thunderbolts! “

  “But you knew why you were being transported,” he said. “I never heard concubinage was accounted a disgrace among your peo
ple.”

  “It is not.” She spoke more quickly now, slurring a trifle as the wine took hold. “But I had hoped--My father was an uork, Lucas. A noble, you would say? My brothers warriors. I thought I would go to a Turk. Or a ... a warrior. A man to give me children ... and my sons would be free warriors again--” She emptied her cup and dashed it to the floor. “A brothel!” she yelled.

  Lucas rose. She flung herself against his breast and wept. He held her close, stroked the bronze hair and made promises that no reasonable man should have uttered.

  Until at last she stepped back and laughed up at him through the tears. She fumbled with her girdle. It fell, and she pulled the dress over her head and stood naked.

  “You are a warrior,” she said. “You have won me. Take me.”

  Chapter II

  The room which the visiting Knights of St. John shared, near the Church of the Holy Apostles, was long, clean, and airy. An open window overlooked a descending hill covered with houses, multitudinous domes, and finally the Bosporus, sparkling blue under a sky where the wind chased little white clouds. Blue as Djansha’s eyes, thought Lucas dreamily.

  “My brothers are out on their business,” said Hugh. “We can talk in private.”

  “Eh?” Lucas regained awareness with a start. “Oh. Yes.” Hugh studied him carefully. “Before I say anything more,” he continued, “I must know why Gasparo Reni sought your life.”

  “Only God can tell!” The steady gaze speared him. Lucas’ ears grew hot. “Oh, very well. The same reason which drove me from Venice in the first instance. He found his wife and I were lovers, and took it ill.”

  “As well he might,” said Hugh severely.

  “Was it such a great matter?” Lucas defended himself. “Affairs of that sort are taken lightly enough by most Venetians. And I was a mere boy. And name of God, that was fourteen years ago!”

  Still Hugh watched him, until he squirmed. At last the knight nodded. “Well-a-day, I believe you,” he said. “Christ Himself did not find that sin unforgivable. Would you be prepared to make amends, in the interest of a reconciliation?”

  “Why should I?” Lucas turned sullen. “If he couldn’t manage his own household better, whose fault is that?”

  “Cain spoke in much the same way,” Hugh reminded him, unrelenting. “Are you a Christian man or not?”

  “Um-m-m . . . well ... so be it, then. I did wrong him. Yes, I’d offer amends, if I had enough money.”

  “The florins are only a token. Would you humble yourself before him and beg his forgiveness?”

  “But he tried to kill me!”

  “You have not answered my question.”

  Lucas looked away, clenching fists in anger. “How is this any concern of yours?”

  Hugh sighed. “I had hoped for a somewhat different response from you. But I fear my calling is not to preach repentance. So I may as well admit, this morning I made inquiries. After several months here, one does learn where to get information. And ... at present it would only benefit your own soul, to confess yourself at fault. He is like a wild beast about you. The sole reason he alleges is that you attacked him and made off with his slave, but he swears he’ll have you killed.”

  “He knows I didn’t begin the fight! Is he possessed?” Lucas crossed himself. The bright afternoon suddenly seemed cold.

  Hugh shook his head. “No. I cannot imagine why he is so wrathful. It seems out of proportion to your offense, especially after so long a time has passed. Perhaps he let it rankle in him all these years; hatred is a cancer of the soul. But he’s not a madman. I’ve been told by the Venetians whom I asked that he has always been valiant and able, if not overly scrupulous. They say he fought with rare courage throughout the Genoese War, though one of my informants winced to recall certain deeds of his. Since then he’s been away from home most of the time, building a rich trade among the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea countries, both Christian and paynim. He maintains a headquarters on Cyprus. I myself never encountered him; but then, the merchants there center in Famagusta, and deal chiefly with the Frankish nobles. He also has an office here, and one in Azov at the mouth of the Don River. Since Azov is a Genoese colony and Messer Gasparo a Venetian who did particular harm to Genoa during the war, you’ll realize that he has uncommon skill as a diplomat, too.”

  “Do you know anything about his wife?” asked Lucas, chiefly because he felt Hugh expected it. Moreta was another shadow to him; not his first woman, and very far from his last.

  The image of Djansha returned, crowding out all others. She had been a novice to love, but ardently eager to please him. She waited for him at this moment. . . . Lucas barely noticed the knight’s negative answer. But the next words snapped him to attention:

  “This feud may prove an obstacle to your return home. You can imagine what might happen if an important signor makes an effort to bring the law down upon you. Fortunately, Messer Gasparo is going on to Cyprus from here. Maybe there I can persuade him of his Christian duty to forgive his enemies.” The leather face flickered with the briefest grin. “I am not without influence in my Order, which is not wholly impotent in Cyprian affairs. But as for yourself--well, I can see no harm in your proceeding to Negroponte. Be careful, though! Walk warily and look for powerful friends.”

  “I came back hoping to be my own man,’’ said Lucas with bitterness.

  Hugh’s mouth tightened. “Do you know why I’m intervening so much on your behalf?” he asked in a rough tone. “I’ve already done far more than the rule I live under would approve. But ... I find that Gasparo Reni is one of the largest Venetian traffickers in slaves.”

  “I know,” said Lucas, without gauging the implications. Hugh swooped upon the words. “How? Who told you?--Yes. That woman they had with them, the slave Gasparo charges you with stealing. Did you?”

  Lucas ran a hand through his unruly hair. “She fled with me,” he admitted.

  “I thought so.” Hugh paused before he went on, dispassionately: “You need not fear arrest if you stay out of the Venetian compound. The quarrel took place beyond the Bailo’s jurisdiction, of course, and the Byzantines are happy to torment him by refusing to act on the case. What’s happened of late around Gallipoli--Well, that makes them all the more spiteful toward Latins. So I’m less worried about you than about the girl. Do you still have her in charge?”

  “Yes,” said Lucas.

  “She’s not a Christian, is she?”

  “Why ... I think not. ... No, she called on a heathen god or two. She speaks Genoese. She was taught that in Azov, to enhance her value.”

  “I felt sure she had not been converted. I suppose you know that Holy Church has forbidden Christians to sell their fellow believers. Therefore slavers are at pains to withhold the Word of God from their poor pagan victims. You’ve taken a heavy responsibility, my friend. I cannot help her, being obliged to respect all secular law which does not conflict with the interests of my Order. So you must be the means of saving her soul.” Tactfully, Brother Hugh did not mention her body. He smiled, though. “Which gives me my only logically valid reason for aiding you, you scamp. So that you may bring her to Negroponte and see that she receives Catholic instruction. Thereafter--” He sobered. “I beg of you, be kind to her.”

  Lucas hitched one leg onto the broad windowsill and half sat, half stood, looking down at his hands. But I only wanted a night of pleasure! he thought.

  And then, wryly: I had it. Also a forenoon. And the rest of this day, when I leave here. Why not be her guardian? Her passage money won’t be too much for me, nor will her company prove burdensome. At Negroponte . . . well . . . no doubt I can make some provision for her. She may wish to join a charitable sisterhood. Or I may find her a husband. Something will surely happen to aid me. It always has.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

  Hugh nodded gravely. “I believe you,” he answered. “You’ve had a harder life than most, I gather. That freezes the soul of some men, but teaches others the va
lue of mercy.”

  “Well, I’ve seen a bit of the world,” said Lucas, embarrassed.

  Hugh began to speak about those foreign parts. Piece by piece, under adroit and sensitive questioning, the younger man’s life was brought back. His boyhood in Crete, his apprenticeship in Venice, his escape to Constantinople as the attendant of an Aragonese knight. He spoke of the Venetian merchant Niccolo Banbarigo, whom he had met here and who had engaged his services in turn, of their sea voyage to the Crimean port, Soldaia, which Venice maintained. The caravan inland, over plain and desert to Bokhara and Samarkand, where Mongol power dwelt beside ancient Islamic scholarship. The eventual return, to discover that war had broken out between Venice and Genoa and that the Genoese, dominant in the Black Sea, would likely seize them and their goods. The fighting between Soldaia and the Genoese colony of Kaffa; the capture of Lucas Greco, who had no wish to rot in an enemy prison and therefore managed to escape eastward. The Tartar merchant whom he came to serve, as fighting man and clerk and--through his gift for readily learning languages--interpreter. His stays in Sarai, Karakorum, Khan Baligh, the gracious towns of Cathay, until at last homesickness came upon him, not so much for any one place in the West as for the daily ways of life and of thinking which he remembered. His early aimless, often dangerous, wandering back across many nations, until he came to the Turkish Black Sea port of Sinope. The Turk there who became not only his employer but his friend, as they traded and fought and intrigued through the turbulent emirates of Anatolia. And at last, the friend slain in a senseless encounter with bandits, and Lucas Greco’s lonely trek to Trebizond.

  Not that he told Brother Hugh everything. There had been too much. Nor was he proud of it all. In countries where the only law was the sword, he had lived by that law. Often had he foresworn himself, or swindled a slow-witted chieftain. The women he did not regret, though he had long ago lost count of them. Some remained entirely clear in his memory--one of rare beauty and learning in Bokhara, a tall Russian girl with hair like ripe wheat; a dark and skillful Kazakh, a Mongol wench as hot as she was unwashed; tiny Mei-Mei who sang to him in the dusk of the Heavenly City--a few such, the rest nearly forgotten, lost in a waste of years and miles.