Nadira looked away.
At sunset, Montrose rode up to the fire and dumped something heavy on the ground, then moved away to picket his horse with the others. Alisdair stood and lifted up the carcass of a yearling deer by its hind legs, admiring it in the light of the campfire. Garreth and John moved quickly to help Alisdair dress it.
Nadira watched as they cut the hide from its body, and then chopped it into manageable pieces with an axe. By the time Montrose returned to the circle of firelight, they had great chunks of venison roasting on sticks by the fire. The aroma made her middle twist in anticipation. Finally she was handed a piece and she devoured it.
A leather bag was passed around. Nadira took her drink in turn, eyes wide to find it full of something she had never tasted before. Not quite wine, but not beer either. Frowning, she passed the skin to Garreth. He smiled at her shyly as he took it.
Alisdair cuffed him, laughing, “Quit makin’ eyes at the lass, you big oaf.”
Nadira wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What was that?” she asked him.
“Mead. From Toledo. We have a goodly supply, thanks be to God. It’s fine stuff.” Alisdair took the skin from Garreth and took a drink for himself.
Nadira lay down facing the fire. She ached from her neck to her feet and the ground was hard. Perhaps another nip of that mead would be called for. She watched the skin as it made its way back to her. Montrose and Alisdair sat opposite each other. For a long time they just stared into the fire. Nadira felt herself drowsing when she was brought back to the present by Alisdair’s gentle voice.
“There was nothin’ you could do, Rob.” She heard him murmur. Nadira opened her eyes just a little. “There was no way you could have made it there in time.”
Nadira watched them from across the fire. Montrose poked the fire with a long stick, sending sparks up with the smoke. He did not reply, but Nadira saw him grimace.
Alisdair continued, “There was no way to hurry that ship, and overland would have delayed us still further. Richard knew the risk.”
“Do not speak to me of his risks,” Montrose growled, “none know them better than I.”
“It’s killin’ you, I know,” Alisdair pulled his blanket around his shoulders and shifted his position on the ground. “There’s naught to be done now, Rob. He’s gone. We’ll go back and find those bloody sailors. Massey is known at the docks. We can kill them slowly, peelin’ their skin back as one pares an apple.” Alisdair’s face twisted in the orange flicker of the firelight.
Montrose tossed the stick into the fire, scaring up more sparks. “There is no time. I must get it from Henry before he gives it to anyone else. Then there will be time for vengeance. I have the whole of my life.” Their eyes met across the fire.
“What think you of the lass?” Alisdair changed the subject quickly. “Do you think she can read so many tongues? I never thought a woman could learn that much,” he finished doubtfully.
“My mother could read,” Montrose answered him. He picked up a piece of saddle harness and leaned closer to the fire to examine the stitching.
“Aye, and a fine lady she was,” Alisdair said. “She could sing fair well, too. Oft I listened under her window.”
Montrose looked up. “Did you now? Did my father ever catch you in such idleness?”
Alisdair laughed quietly. “Oh aye. He did and flogged me for it, but it did not stop me. I just developed better ears so I could hear him coming.”
There was no verbal response from Montrose. Something in the fire popped. She jumped to her feet, heart pounding. The others sprang up in response, reaching for their swords. After moment of silence, Alisdair broke the tension with a chuckle.
“We have the girl here on guard for us. Will you stand first watch, lassie?” he laughed. Nadira was mortified. She sat down again and apologized.
“I am sorry. I …”
“No harm, do not fret yourself about it,” Montrose said quietly. “I’m not easy here either.” The men sat down again. There was the rasp of swords sliding back into their scabbards.
“Nor I. There are eyes watching us even now, I gather,” Marcus looked about as he chewed.
“This reminds me of the time we were with the duke at Nancy. You remember that night, John? Rob was on watch while we were all sleeping with bellies full of ale. He had his sword drawn the whole night. Kept hearing things in the woods. Eyes watchin’ him from the dark.” The men laughed. “Naught but owls.” Garreth slapped Montrose on the shoulder.
“I was fourteen years old.” Montrose shook his head making his hair swing back and forth. “You will never let me forget that.”
Uneasy laughter rippled around the circle. Alisdair took another drink. “Can’t let you forget somethin’ like that. How about the time Richard put a wee snake in yer jerkin while you slept? I like that story too.”
At the mention of Richard, the mirth took on a more somber tone.
“’Tis true.” John said, “Richard put a snake in my tunic once. Put a toad in my cup, too.”
“He was always teasin’ someone, that lad.” Alisdair tapped his knee with a thick finger.
“Aye,” John added, “and he never meant any meanness. Not a mean bone in his body.”
“Always looking out for us, too. He brought me my Brigit to me when he knew I was needin’ a wife. He said he thought she looked ‘up to the job’.” This brought guffaws from all and even a small smile to Montrose’s lips.
“He taught me to write my name.” Marcus said quietly, twisting his cup.
“Aye,” Alisdair said, “and you past yer thirtieth year. This lass here not twenty and can write ten languages.”
“Six,” Nadira blurted out before she thought better of it. Correcting one’s master is not polite in any language. But the fair stranger merely echoed her response.
“Six, then,” he said with a nod in her direction.
Montrose said to her, “How did you come by this skill?”
Nadira twisted her hands in her blanket. She looked at each one in turn, deciding how much to say.
“When I was seven years old my father lost an important battle.” Nadira began slowly. “My mother and I, sisters, brothers, my father’s other wives and their children were taken to the courtyard and lined up like horses before a race. Men drew lots and took us away. I was permitted to go with my mother,” she paused to test the response from her audience. “She was an educated woman. A poet.” Nadira looked at each of the men in turn, daring them to challenge her, but there was no sound but the crackling of the fire.
“She taught me to read and write in her language and that of our new master, and when we came to Barcelona, she taught me Latin. Hebrew and Greek I learned from my master after she died. English I learned only last year. I cannot write English well,” she added with a grimace, remembering her struggles with that language. “But I can read an English manifest.”
“Curious,” Montrose said, “Curious that a Jew would permit this kind of scholarship in a female servant.” The challenge had come.
“Senor Sofir is no longer a Jew, my lord. He told you himself.”
“Yes.” Lord Montrose made it sound like ‘no’.
Nadira bristled. “The master had his use for me.”
Someone beyond the fire snorted. Montrose pointed his finger into the darkness and the laughter stopped. He turned to Nadira, who was now pink with embarrassment.
“I am very interested in his ‘use’ as you put it. Please continue.”
Sofir had been like another father to her. Perhaps a better one than her own. She resented the insinuation. Nadira struggled to keep her voice even. “I wrote his letters, his bills of lading, his inventories.” There was more, but this small list seemed to be enough for now. Nadira did not want to tell them everything.
“Still, it is not the norm.”
“No, that is true, my lord. These are not normal times.”
Alisdair spat. “Normal times? What is ‘normal times’?” H
e grunted. “Yer quite daft if you think there is such a thing.”
Nadira opened her mouth to disagree, but thought better of it. Montrose asked her, “How long after your master was baptized did he begin to teach you Hebrew?”
Nadira blinked in surprise. “How did you know? It was the very day.”
Montrose did not answer; his eyes were on the fire. Instead he said quietly, “We have some letters and documents we picked up in Barcelona. Perhaps you can read them to us now. It’s time I heard them.”
Alisdair brought one of the large saddlebags from the baggage pile and set it down delicately beside her. He pulled a brand from the fire and lit a candle he pulled from another bag. Lord Montrose opened the bag and took out a handful of folded velum sheets, two scrolls, and three packages wrapped in parchment. He pulled the largest from the pile, opening the wooden skippet and held it to Alisdair’s candle to see the impression on the wax inside.
“This one is from the university in Wittenburg,” he said, handing the crisp vellum to Nadira.
She took it, broke the wax that bound the edges together and unfolded the folio, spreading it out over her knees and smoothing it down. Alisdair arranged himself behind her, holding the candle over her shoulder. The letter was densely scribed in Latin in a precise hand. Two columns of writing filled the page from end to end. The first paragraph was a greeting.
“My dear friend and colleague, Hon. Richard Longmoor, I send greetings. Below is the catalogue from Count Braslow’s library, both sacred and profane. It is with great pleasure I extend my lord’s invitation to visit and copy with a free hand anything you desire. Of course, your own collected treasures are welcome here for the pleasure of my lord’s copyists.”
Nadira drew a finger down the lists of manuscripts and codices that followed. “Do you wish for me to read them all?” she asked in wonder.
“Nay. We just need to know what these are. Long lists of books no longer matter,” Alisdair sighed. Montrose nodded in agreement, his eyes low and focused on his boots.
“Here’s another one, lass.”
Nadira took this one, broke the seal and read it to them. This one was a letter thanking Richard for his help in cataloguing a collection of manuscripts and serving as letter of introduction to a nobleman in Verona.
The next was another catalog, this time from a merchant’s house in Istanbul. One by one she went through each letter, some with catalogs of manuscripts, others with invitations, until there was but one remaining. Alisdair put his hand on hers after she reached for it. “I don’t know about this one, lass.” He turned to look at Montrose. They waited for him; no one made a sound. Finally Montrose nodded once. His mouth drew into a firm line as he took the letter himself, broke the seal and passed it silently to Nadira.
She read the Latin to herself, translating out loud into halting English. “Richard, greetings to my beloved son. It is with the grace of God that I am able to put these words to paper and I pray they reach you…” Nadira paused, whispering the rest of the sentence, “and find you safe and well.” She looked up, unsure whether to continue. She could not see Lord Montrose, for he had moved back away from the fire when she took the letter from his hand, but she heard him groan softly in the darkness behind her. The other men sat around the fire, waiting for her to continue. The flickering light gave the illusion of movement, but they sat still as stone.
She continued in a shaky voice, “It has come to my attention by way of Brother Andrew that there are wicked men in Toledo and Barcelona who are known to take books by force from priests and merchants. I wish to warn you to beware of Massey and his men, now sailing under Captain Snead on the Silvia. He will be in the southern waters all winter and is likely to be visiting the very houses on which you plan to call.” She took a breath, “I remind you with love, that you are my own, my son, my beloved. Kemberley awaits your glorious return. It is with great pleasure that I tell you the Bishop came by this past week, bringing me news of your triumph in Wittenberg. He tells me you impressed the doctors there with your scholarship, your wit, and your gracious manners. You have been extended invitations to all the fine houses in Prague, Berlin, Flanders, Paris, and dare I say, Rome. Even now letters arrive nearly every week requesting your presence at universities all over the continent.
“My darling son, with such accolades and invitations, I find it difficult to understand why you prefer to roam the south countries where the law is weak and brigands abound.” Nadira paused, unable to catch her breath. Garreth passed the mead to her. She drank, easing the constriction that closed her throat. She did not want to read the words that followed.
When she hesitated too long, Alisdair thumped the vellum with a thick finger, urging her to continue. Tentatively, her voice weak, she almost whispered the last sentence. “As you well know, I do not share your faith in your brother’s ability to protect you. I urge you to return home to England at once, come by ship from Venice, not Barcelona. Stay away from the docks there. I have arranged for monies for you with our friends Benite and Bernoulli. God speed. Your loving father, Richard, Baron Kemberley.”
After the sound of his name died on her lips, there was an eerie silence.
Alisdair stiffened behind her. He gathered the documents from her lap and stuffed them roughly back into the leather bag. “What now, then, Rob,” Alisdair snarled into the darkness as he snapped the laces of the bag with a jerk.
A tongue of firelight reached past Nadira, reflecting off a leather boot as Montrose moved behind her. She could not help but turn her head to hear his answer; the words were so faint.
“I’ll take first watch.”
Though barely audible, this statement was immediately followed by the thump of baggage hitting the ground beyond the fire as the men obediently rolled themselves in their blankets.
Nadira made no move to lie by the fire. Instead she sat in place wrapped in her blanket until the men had settled themselves and the rumble of snores drifted across the fire pit. When peace had settled over the sleeping men she unfolded her legs and crept to Montrose’s side where he sat on a little rise above the camp. He tilted his head to acknowledge her presence, but did not greet her.
Nadira wanted to tell him how brave his brother had been. She wanted to make him see that moment when Massey had made his final malicious demand, that moment when the blue-eyed stranger had called upon his last vestige of strength and defied his torturer. She could not imagine herself suffering so. She would have broken long before; she would have told Massey everything, begged for her life.
She wanted to tell Montrose how his brother had endured monstrous cruelty yet still had the heart to smile at her as she bathed his battered face. She had come to Montrose to comfort him with words of courage. Instead, as she opened her mouth to speak she tasted the salt of her tears. The memory of Richard’s eyes, filled with peace as the life left them, robbed her of her ability to speak. Her hands felt the memory of his cold fingers pressing hers briefly as he slowly died. She was sobbing. She clutched at her face, ashamed to be laid so bare before Montrose, mortified that having come to him she now appeared weak and foolish.
With effort she stilled her shaking, gulping deep breaths of the smoky air, wiping her eyes and nose with the hem of her chemise. When she could see again, she braved a glance up at the man beside her. He looked down at her in the starlight. She saw Richard’s eyes, alive again in his. When he spoke his voice was soft.
“All who knew him, loved him,” he whispered with a sad smile.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEY were packed and on the trail soon after sunrise the next morning. The road narrowed as they climbed in altitude and became not much more than a path. The men often dismounted to guide the animals around treacherous curves. The sun seemed to jump in all directions, first rising in the east, and then seeming to appear in the south, then the north. The switchbacks confused Nadira so badly she stopped trying to keep track of their progress.
By late afternoon Montrose had them camp
beside a tiny mountain stream. They were sheltered from the path by an old tree on its stony bank. They did not build a fire, nor did they waste any time talking. Instead, while the sun remained above the horizon they took out their swords, knives, and daggers and sharpened them with whetstones pulled from the baggage. Nadira cut the bread and cheese and passed the food around. She filled the water skins from the stream and helped move the horses to better forage that grew between the sharp rocks. She was watched silently as the zing zing zing of the whetstones rung against the steel.
The moon shone bright enough to see clearly the road in front and behind them, but Nadira could not relax this night. She turned over and wiggled in the thin grass, hoping to find a comfortable position on the hard ground. No matter how she lay, a stone gouged her flesh. A few paces in front of her Montrose sat quietly facing the road in the direction they had come. She knew his ears were doing most of the work, even with the bright moon to aid his eyes. Every time she curled one way or the other, his head cocked in her direction. Alisdair could not sleep either. After some time tossing about and grunting, he gave up trying and joined Montrose on watch. Nadira lay still, listening.
“What are you thinkin’, Rob?”
Montrose turned his body to include Alisdair in his field of vision. “I’m thinking about Richard,” he said shortly.
“Aye.” There was a lengthy silence before Nadira heard Alisdair ask, “Are you going to send word to the laird about it?”
“No.”
“Rob, you know…” Alisdair was shaking his head.
“No. Let him think we are both dead.” Nadira saw Montrose relax. He rolled from his sitting position to lie back on the grass – arms behind his head, looking at the moon. Alisdair took up the sentry position, resting his scabbard across his knees.
The Hermetica of Elysium (Elysium Texts Series) Page 4