“My son…and the death of the one who took him,” Ravan said flatly.
Salvatore nodded slowly. “I see. And how much does this son mean to you, as I’m sure you love him very much.”
“You will profit greatly enough, if you are able to have me there in time.”
Ravan could not know he’d just said a great deal, for Salvatore had been for some time trying to pull enough resources together to build an even faster ship. His father had perhaps been right, for his son did not respect as often as he should the constraints of a conventional merchant’s life. Consequently his resources were hard won at times, often bartered. Gold was rare, and what little he made went almost entirely into the maintenance of his ship, the Corbeau Rouge—the Red Raven.
“What is your name, sir?” Salvatore wondered next.
“Ravan.”
To this, the captain’s mouth fell open for an instant. “Raven…is it?” He continued to step sideways slowly, circling his unlikely follower. “Now that is a sign, I believe.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A sign. You do believe in signs?” Just as quickly, Salvatore dismissed the notion. “Never mind. Very well,” he gestured over his head even though the night was relatively calm. “Can we first be out of these elements and into an atmosphere more conducive to, shall we say, negotiations? I’m starving.” He pointed at Velecent, “And your selfish friend has shared none of his spoils.”
Velecent shot a glance at the bone which was all that was left of the lamb shank. He tossed it into some brush and wiped his hand on his hip.
A short while later, the three entered a different tavern, this one off the water’s edge and more accommodating to quieter conversation of the sort that the men required for negotiation. They made their way to the back of the bar. Sitting at a small, roughhewn table close to the hearth, Salvatore gestured for drinks all around and requested an evening’s fare for them as well.
Ravan waited until they were served before he began with, “I have been told that your ship is fast.”
This prompted a chuckle from the captain as he attacked the porridge before him, following it with a generous draft of the ale. He wiped his lips on his sleeve and grinned boldly, his teeth a brilliant white against his tanned skin. “You denigrate the Red Raven with your evaluation of her.”
Ravan’s eyes flashed with surprise. “Did you say the ship is called Red Raven?”
“It is, and fast is an understatement if ever there was one. The vessel is fleet as they come.”
Ravan took a moment to collect himself, taking a long drink of his own. “Then you can take me and my men to Antalya and be there before a ship which sailed three evenings ago?”
“Before it? Three days you say?” The captain snorted. “You expect miracles.” He became somewhat more serious. “But catch it. Yes. I certainly can…for a price.”
“Name your price.”
“Really? And this price, if I name it…will you be able to meet it?”
Ravan was becoming annoyed by the man’s propensity to skirt the issue. Along with that went the simple fact that, because he’d left the realm on such short notice, he was without immediate capital. He lacked disposable funds.
“I am leader of the Ravan Dynasty, northwest of here. My resources are considerable. I will have—”
“When you have…I will be most happy to negotiate,” Salvatore interrupted him.
“You obstruct your efforts,” Velecent warned their new acquaintance. “His resources are great, enough to make a whole fleet of ships, and then sink them at his whim.” This may not have been entirely true, but it was no lie Ravan had capital, just not with him.
Salvatore set his fork down, eyes narrowed. “Then explain to me why you are without the wherewithal now?”
“My son was taken in an attempted overthrow. I gave chase straightaway, tried not to lose the trail.” Ravan looked at his feet. It was hard for him to face what he believed to be failure. “I did not believe the chase would go on so long. I hadn’t the time to pull together my resources before I left.”
Pausing, Salvatore appeared to consider Ravan’s testimony. “I see. And it is this ship which has already sailed that holds your dear son.”
“It is.
“And this is important to me because…” His voice wandered off, and he waved his hand overhead as though he might summon the lost child.
This was nearly more than Ravan would endure, and he began to rise from his chair. Velecent, knowing his master well enough to recognize small gestures, laid his hand on Ravan’s arm.
Velecent smiled, and said, “The child is the heir apparent. Consider him…worth a considerable investment.”
Ravan wanted nothing more than to kill the man where he sat. He was intensely frustrated by the whole affair, chasing, bargaining…hoping. He’d suffered long waits before, in his past, and strongly preferred to confront his enemies straight up. But it was immensely difficult to chase them when they were mere apparitions.
Salvatore, however, was no apparition. This man had the capacity to help but was not easily persuaded, even on the life of a child. Truthfully, why would he? Ravan wondered to himself. Life was cheap, especially that of a child.
He suddenly wished that Nicolette was here. She would know what to say, what to do. He was sorry that he’d not brought her along at the start. Velecent carried the conversation for a bit, and it gave Ravan the time to consider that he would give his entire kingdom if he could only have Nicolette and Risen safe at his side.
Just then, even with the doors to the tavern closed, a soft breeze blew across the table, making the candle in the center dance wildly as though it would spring to life. Ravan stared at the happy flame. Then, as though he’d manifested a dying wish, the front door of the tavern eased open and a woman, face covered with a scarf, slid silently inside. Ravan’s back was to the door, and much of his view was blocked by a massive, upright timber, so he did not see the traveler drop the scarf and look solemnly about herself.
Salvatore, however, did have a direct line of sight, and his interest was gotten straightaway. Velecent was in mid-sentence when the captain set his ale down with a thud.
“Now there is respite from the storm, gentlemen. If you will give me a moment, I shall return, and we will visit further on this.”
Ravan did not turn to see what Salvatore so urgently needed to occupy himself with. Instead, he leaned in to have quiet words with Velecent. Therefore, he did not see the captain stride directly up to Nicolette with a brilliant smile and take her hand, bending deeply before kissing it.
* * *
“My Lady. Such a welcome apparition after a fortnight upon raging seas. And it has been a treacherous journey for me. I would be honored if you would—”
“Take me to Ravan.” Her request was immediate and peculiar, her eyes with an unusual clarity about them.
This brought him up short. “Excuse me, I…of course. That is my ship; did I hear you to mean—”
“Ravan, the man.” Then just as suddenly she ignored him, instead narrowed her eyes and scanned the patrons within.
Without seeing him hidden behind the timber, she knew immediately that he was there and went straightaway to her husband. Salvatore was left fairly speechless and quite intrigued.
* * *
Ravan saw Velecent’s eyes go wide, felt a soft hand on his shoulder. He spun, and there she was. He found himself face to face with his beautiful Nicolette.
“I am here,” was all she said.
In an instant he was on his feet and had her in his arms. He pulled her close, held her tightly, and whispered, “He’s gone, my love. I was too late, but I will find him; I promise.”
She kissed him, murmured how she already knew Risen was gone, how she’d only just made it to the port herself. “We will go together, bring him and Sylvie back,” she stated with finality. Behind her, the one handed maiden and Salvatore stepped closer.
The captain stood beside the table t
aking in all of Nicolette. “Well, well. This had just gotten so much more interesting.”
As though she’d been part of the conversation all along, Nicolette withdrew from beneath her robes a significant sack of solid gold nobles. There were at least two-hundred, enough to gather the attention of anyone present.
She said to Salvatore, “There are more, significantly more, but only if you are successful.”
The captain smiled, stroked the point of his dark beard while a bemused twinkle danced in his eyes. “Ah, and now the contract becomes much more enticing.” He seemed to give it just another moment’s thought before declaring, “Gentlemen…and ladies…” he bowed deeply again to Nicolette, over embellishing, “…you have yourselves a ship.”
“Then we sail in the morning?” Ravan was overcome to have Nicolette by his side. A renewed vigor flowed into his weary body.
“Meet me at the eastern pier within the hour.” Salvatore lifted his ale and downed it with one long pull, slamming the mug back down with a heavy thud. “We sail…tonight.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
†
Risen was aboard an Ottoman naval ship, a Turkish Galliot nearly thirty-four meters long. It was masted but also had twenty rowing banks, each oar manned with six to seven men. The crew aboard this vessel numbered over a hundred men and included sailors, officers, rowers, and troops.
The slaves were kept in the peripheral mid-hold, manacled side by side along the narrow passageways just beneath the deck of the ship. They were pressed so close together that it was nearly impossible for them not to feel the captive next to them, and because the ankle chains were attached to the floor, it was difficult to change positions.
From where Risen was held, he could see the long rowing banks—the rowers with their arms taut as bowstrings, beating out a cadence to match the hammering of a drum. The pounding was awful, like a bad heartbeat, and forbade sleep. The first night, Risen’s head pounded with a headache that had taken up between his eyes and refused to leave, and he was very thirsty.
There was little else that he could see about the ship, other than the rowers, but at one point the bleating of a goat and the neigh of a horse indicated the cargo was more significant than just slaves. The seas slapped dully against the side of the ship, reminding him that there was a space narrower than his arm that separated him and Sylvie from the watery depths beyond.
The child slaves were not manacled at the wrists as the others were, for they were considered a more negligible risk. If they were foolish enough to attempt escape, the ocean floor would happily receive their stupidity. Risen knew there was simply nowhere for them to go, and the circumstances threatened to capture his young mind as well.
Food was not abundant, but because the Sultan intended that some of these captives would eventually serve in his military, they were not starved as slaves aboard some vessels were. The first time food and water were delivered, it was by a boy not much older than Risen and black as the night. The child, barefoot and dressed in only a simple linen vest and what Risen thought a ridiculous diaper of sorts that twisted about the boy’s pelvis, paused when he reached the two of them. It was an unusual moment, almost awkward as the boy glanced furtively about as though he intended to do something he should not.
The boy extended one thin hand toward them. Risen thought his long, narrow fingers were as smooth as the black velvet on his mother’s gowns as the boy reached across him to hazard a touch of the flaxen tendrils of Sylvie’s nearly waist length hair. The boy hesitated as though not certain Risen would allow it.
“Leave her—” Risen began, but Sylvie lifted a hand in such a way as to silence him.
“It’s all right,” she said, and with her pale green eyes sparkling clear as a starlit sky, she took the dark-skinned child’s hand in her own and lay across it a thick lock of her own hair.
The boy had an expression of incredulity on his face as he fingered the strands sliding like silk across the palm of his hand. In a flash, the boy produced from somewhere a knife and held the unusual sickle shaped blade up in front of his own enormous, white eyes.
“No!” Risen called out and reached for the blade, but Sylvie silenced him again.
Risen watched in amazement as the boy made no further effort to use the knife but laid it simply across both of his palms, offering it to the girl.
Sylvie then did something very unusual. With a smile spreading splendidly across her beautiful features, she accepted the knife and, with a single twist of her hand, swept it across a good portion of her hair, severing a section nearly half a meter in length. She held the hair and blade out to the boy. The knife was received kindly, but the hair was taken as though it was a great jewel given from the Sultan himself. The boy dropped to both knees and bowed so deeply his forehead nearly touched the deck.
The boy rose, stared at the golden lock of hair, and said something to Sylvie in an unfamiliar language. Then, dropping a small linen sack and a skin flask into Risen’s lap, the child was abruptly gone. Within the sack were dried figs and apricots. In the flask was water. It was as though she’d performed a miracle, compassion begat of kindness.
“Sylvie, I…” Risen was speechless.
Then, with not forewarning…she kissed him.
He closed his eyes, at first simply astonished. Then he let the kiss steal him away, allowed her lips to draw from him all the pain the world could offer. Wretched as their ordeal was, awful as mankind could be, nothing was more flawless to him than this moment.
He’d long dreamed of this kiss, had prayed that he might one day know her lips upon his. Never had he imagined, in all his fantasies, that it would be like this. Shackled in the hold of a slave ship, bound for a hostile land, vanquished from all mercy, it was…the most beautiful moment of his life.
Sylvie smiled softly, her face a dream to him. Then she rested her head on Risen’s shoulder, and closed her eyes…and his heart broke perfectly.
* * *
With nothing else to do, most of the time they tried to sleep. This was for the best because the hold was by then stifling. The slave compartment had excrement canisters within reach that were emptied daily, but the captives did not necessarily always have the strength to make use of them.
Risen was grateful that his spot allowed him at least one shoulder against a rib of the immense vessel. Against him leaned Sylvie. The roiling of the ship on high seas was disagreeable, but Risen did not retch like some of the prisoners did. Several were unable to even sustain water, and they were shortly unchained and dragged above; he chose not to imagine to what end. Even with the extra food and water that the dark skinned boy brought, the trip was harrowing and long. By the end, there would be eight total amongst this slave lot who would not survive.
No one told the prisoners how long the passage would be, but another slave whispered that it could be as long as two weeks. Risen marked the days on a sodden timber above his head with his fingernail.
It was three marks later when Sylvie slumped heavily against him, and he held her as though he would never let her go. It was five marks later when she became ashen and unwell, consumed with a terrible fever. Every so often Risen would awaken her, brush his lips against her cheek as he offered encouragement and slipped sips of water to her from the small flask he hid.
But Sylvie was increasingly listless this long night. He could not be certain, but he believed for the first time that she might die. Consumed with helplessness, there was little more that he could do when suddenly…the Englishman came for the girl.
“No! You can’t take her,” Risen pulled her closer to him. “If she dies, it will be in my arms.”
“I will have her, or she will die.” William went to unlock the manacle on her ankle and gestured with one hand, indicating Risen should help her rise so that he might receive Sylvie into his arms.
“What will you do?”
“I am doubly quartered, but my bed is my own and curtained from the rest. I will put her there and, if she can, she wil
l gather strength. Then she will work the galley—serve the officers if she recovers well enough. If she cannot, she will die in a warm bed with every comfort I can provide her.” His face was grim.
“Why?” Risen asked straight up. “Why would you do this?”
“Because it is her best chance to—”
“No. Why do you care?” Risen was suspicious, not yet ready to accept that this man might possess the goodness Sylvie believed he did. He smoothed the pale hair of the sleeping girl from her damp brow, and she murmured something unintelligible. “She thinks you are a good man, you know. You took us from our homes, and she still thinks that.” Risen pulled the delirious girl closer.
William sighed and gave the boy prisoner more consideration than he was obligated to, given their situation. It was a turning point for them both.
“I have regret.” He breathed deeply and rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye. “Before, it was something else—an escape, I suppose. I do not rue that I’ve been an instrument of war, but…I regret that I am a part of this.” He gestured to the unconscious girl. “This should not have happened to you, should not have happened to her.”
“Then you will help us?”
The Englishman nodded slowly, sincerely. “I will; at what cost I don’t know. But, yes, I will.”
“Why now?” Risen pressed him. “And why not before, before we reached the port and set sail?”
William seemed particularly uncomfortable under the questioning. He looked away, gazing down the long row of mostly sleeping captors. “Risen, I am not a good man…”
It was the first time Risen had heard the soldier call him by name.
“…but I am now inspired to do a good thing.” William’s starkly pale eyes focused on Risen first, then on Sylvie. “She did this. She made me begin to feel again. So, I am ready to be done with this.” He did not give Risen long to process the gravity of what he said. “Now help her to me before she suffers the worst.” He motioned again, reaching for the girl.
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