The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  An arm’s-length above the child, the pirate plucked the dagger from the air.

  "Hot," he said, holding the blade before the boy’s face. He set the child on the floor. "Don’t touch it too soon."

  The boy shook his head vigorously.

  "It’s cool now," the Raven said. "Take it."

  The little boy reached for the knife, but the pirate moved it. Instantly the child assumed a stance, his short legs spread, rocking forward on his toes; an echo of Il Corvo’s agile pose. For a few minutes they feinted and sparred for possession of the blade. Fifty times the cruel edge came within a hairsbreadth of slicing the child’s soft skin, but he ducked and twisted, moving in under Il Corvo’s arms. Somehow the pirate made it appear as if the boy really did dispossess him of the weapon, emitting a suitably foul oath and dropping the knife when the child cracked him on the knee-cap with a sudden, awkward kick.

  "Well-placed," he said as the student bore his prize away. He sat down next to Elayne, rubbing his joint, and gave her a sideways smile. "A promising brat."

  She did not return the smile. "Would not grown men serve you better?" It came out like an accusation. "Why children?"

  He leaned back, his elbows on the table. "Because they are wholly mine."

  Elayne turned her face away from his faultless profile. "They seem a frail force."

  "Do they?" he asked idly.

  She rolled the edge of the scroll under her finger. Her heart seemed to pound in her ears when he was so close to her. "Would you bring up your own child in such a manner?"

  She felt him look at her. Before he spoke, she added, "And you need not enlighten me—I am certain it is how you were fostered. Would you make the same of your own blood?"

  The sound of the whetstone wailed, searing metal to stone. His body was perfectly still beside her. She thought he was more frightening when he was motionless than when he wielded any weapon.

  "Tell me what choice I have," he said softly.

  Elayne wet her lips. She had not expected him to give her a serious reply. But he waited, as if he meant it. She frowned down at her knuckles, finding that mere admonitions to do good and not sin seemed foolish. She could not give a sermon on it. It seemed utterly wrong, to corrupt children, to bend them to such service, and yet she could only offer platitudes about abandoning his iniquity and seeking rectitude. Platitudes to the man who swore to guard her from such murderers as himself.

  "I asked your sister the same once," he said. "And she had no answer for me either."

  She bent her head. Then she took a deep breath and looked toward him. "If you desire that I will bear your children, then you must find one."

  He never moved. His lashes flicked downward and up again. He remained gazing at Dario’s back as the youth pumped the grinding wheel.

  "Libushe taught me many things," Elayne murmured, barely above a breath. "Even if you force me, I can prevent a child."

  It was a lie; Libushe had taught her herbs and methods that might prove successful at preventing a conception, but the wise-woman had not promised certainty, and warned her it was a deadly sin to use them. But Elayne thought even a wizard might not be sure of what a woman of knowledge could impart.

  He looked at her then. Instead of the cold fury or disgust she had prepared for, it was a mystified look, as if she had spoken some riddle that made no sense to him. "Why?’

  "Because it would be mine, too," she said, "and I will not have any child of mine brought up to be what you are."

  His fine mouth hardened. "A bastard?"

  "A murderer. Like these." She inclined her head toward the others.

  "You wish him to have no defenses?"

  She paused at that. "No," she said. "But..." She put her palms together, trying to find words for what she meant. "No more than other people. Not corrupted and trained to slay as if it is a game."

  She thought he would mock her and call her foolish. He only frowned a little, then sprang up. He walked to the foot of the stairs, put his boot upon the lowest step, then turned and came back. He looked down into her eyes, still with that faint frown. "If I swear this to you, then you will not resist me?" he demanded in a low voice. "You will conceive?"

  She felt her cheeks burning. His word could hardly be trusted. She did not want to be his wife. The idea of bearing him sons and daughters was horrifying and frightening and exhilarating all at once. "If God wills it," she heard herself say, in a voice that barely whispered in her throat. But it did not seem that God’s will could have any link to what she felt.

  "Then I swear," he said at once. "Man child or girl, their education belongs to you. I will not teach them what I know."

  * * *

  The storm lasted two nights and swept past, leaving wreckage and a crystalline atmosphere, a chill that made these warmblooded southerners shiver and chafe their hands. The air felt revitalizing to Elayne, but even she huddled close in her mantle as they toured the storm-clawed rooms and loggias. She felt as shattered as the beautiful carved doors that hung askew on their hinges—as if she were someone unknown to herself, born of the destruction to a new and harsher spirit.

  The white puppy trailed behind her, endowed now with the name of Nimue, for the Lady of the Lake who had bewitched the love-sotted Merlin and sealed him in his cave. The young dog cared for nothing but play and theft, investigating the debris with a sportive glee—the only cheerful presence amid a grimly silent household.

  The castle stood, but the open arcades lay in ruins, their heavy beams torn askew and flung into the shuttered chambers. Elayne doubted if Amposta’s ship could have survived such a tempest. She said a prayer for Lady Beatrice, but the countess’s fate seemed distant now, in God’s hands.

  Her own pressed much closer. The Raven appeared unconcerned about the damage to his castle, the smashed tiles and drenched hangings. The gleaming horizon seemed to trouble him more—he stared out at the empty blue sea and posted watches at all the corners of the fortress.

  Elayne thought of the fleets he had said might come for her. She’d thought he spoke in dry jest, but he surveyed the water with such intensity that she knew he expected something to appear. Before he had made no effort to constrain her to stay within the castle. Today he spoke sharply if she lagged more than a few steps behind him.

  "Is there danger of attack?" she asked when he had sent Zafer away to discover how the town had fared.

  He glanced down at her. For an instant the flash was there, that promise of fire and pain that bound them now whenever he met her eyes. Elayne forced herself not to look away.

  "Attack is always a prospect," he said.

  "Might you bring yourself to utter just how large a prospect?"

  He gave a short laugh. "It is not attack on this stronghold that need alarm you, my lady. I maintain defense of the island by sufficient means." He looked back out to sea. "My comrades are to gather a fleet here, in preparation for our return to Monteverde."

  "A fleet." She pushed back from the marble parapet, startled. "So soon?"

  "The time was appointed many months ago. When first I had news that Franco Pietro was to take a bride—and her name was Princess Elena."

  "A fleet," she said faintly.

  "A great fleet, of sixty ships and four thousand men-at-arms, to bring about the absolute destruction of the Riata. It has taken me five years to assemble it."

  "Depardeu," she whispered. She looked at him, and then at the empty horizon. The sea was fresh and running high. Huge waves crashed far below, rolling in under the precipitous castle wall. Nothing else interrupted the expanse of vivid blue.

  "Yes," he said, "they do not come."

  Veiled by the wind-tossed mass of her hair, Elayne looked down, twisting the band on her finger. She had wished with all her heart to depart on Amposta’s vessel for England and home. But she did not believe anything could have kept it afloat in such a storm. Even if his comrades were marauding pirates, she could not wish so many such an end. Her throat felt tight and queasy. />
  "Haps they did not all perish," the Raven said evenly. "Some might have made shelter."

  "God defend them," she said, signing the cross.

  "No one will set this at God’s door," he said. "They will blame me."

  "You? For a storm?"

  "Aye. And the Devil. They will say I tried to command the wind by diabolic means, and lost control of it."

  The puppy broke into shrill barking, scrambling after a gull that had the temerity to land on the marble edge. The bird took off in a clumsy flap of wings, then hovered and wheeled in the updraft from the cliff. Having accomplished her adopted duty, Nim trotted importantly back to Elayne, skirting broken tiles and jumping over the smashed pot of a palm tree. She grabbed a branch of the palm in her sharp white teeth and shook it vigorously, sending dirt flying from what was left.

  "Peace, little witch," Elayne said gently, pulling the plant away.

  The pirate reached down. He grasped the whole of the shattered palm. He swept it up, as Nim skipped backward, and heaved it over the parapet in one great arc, flinging clods of dirt.

  His face held no expression. He began to seize pieces of broken clay, hurling them one after another in graceful flights that soared and tumbled and fell out of sight. He moved with methodical calm along the railing, bending to grasp a piece of wreckage—any piece, large or small—rising in one swift motion to launch it from the cliff. Shards of tile and smashed members of wood sailed from the parapet and disappeared into blue oblivion.

  When the floor was cleared, he put his boot to the edge of a pedestal that had survived the storm and toppled it, sending Elayne and Nimue cowering back as the stone smashed down. Chips of tile and stone went flying. Jagged cracks shot across the beautiful tile floor.

  Elayne snatched up the puppy and turned her back as he moved toward a sculpture of a griffon atop the parapet. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting another impact, but none came.

  She turned hesitantly. He stood still, an ironic tilt to his mouth. The breeze played with his black hair and lifted the dark cloak, flashing wings of bloody red. He might have been the Devil indeed, standing there deadly and alone in the dazzling sun. He cast one look at the empty horizon and turned away.

  "We leave tonight," he said. "Take what you want. We will not return here again."

  ELEVEN

  The city of Venice seemed to rise from the green water like a glistening dream: a silent place, where voices drifted from unseen windows and the faint splash of the boatman’s pole was the only sound of passage.

  "Case d’Morosini," the Raven had murmured to the boatman as they pulled away from the Egyptian’s galley in the harbor. On the quays and the Great Canal there had been many ships and boats, but here in the narrower streets of water there was no bustle, not of wheels nor hooves nor footsteps. The peaked windows of the buildings all were shuttered. Exotic pointed arches and striped columns, their foundations awash, reflected plays of brilliant sunlight and darkness from the water.

  The long, peculiar boats they called gondolas were like slippers with turned-up, pointed toes. Elayne sat in the small silk-draped cabin with Margaret, both of them leaning to stare about through their veils at the mysterious facades that glided past. The boatman swung the gondola in a graceful turn, guiding the bow into the cave-like water entry of a great mansion. Stripes and diamonds adorned the walls in bright colors. Painted leaves entwined the shapes of heraldic beasts. It seemed as if the silent city had been bedecked for a great celebration that no one had attended.

  Without any signal of their arrival, the mansion door swung open. Il Corvo stepped lightly onto the wet landing, flanked by Dario and Zafer. None of them wore their blades; the customs officials had taken them into strong-boxes and handed back paper receipts. The youths stood by, their faces grim and alert, while Elayne and Margaret climbed onto the steps with the aid of pages in extravagant livery.

  Elayne felt again the strange sensation of standing upon solid ground after so long at sea. It seemed as if the world slid past her for an instant, then stabilized—but if she turned her head suddenly it slid again, an instant’s dizziness that made her glad of the pageboy’s arm beneath her hand.

  "My master begs you attend him upstairs," the pageboy said in an accent of the Italian tongue that she could barely understand. He ushered them through a humid hall, so dark that torches were lit in the middle of the day. Elayne laid back her veil, glad enough to be rid of the smothering gauze. Iron chests and wooden tuns lined the walls. As the servant led them out into a courtyard, she shaded her eyes with the change from light to dark to glaring sunlight again.

  They entered the mansion on the upper story. Beautiful inlaid designs decorated the smooth stone floors. The chamber where they waited was large and cool, freshened by a faint breeze through the tall shutters. As servants brought sweet wine and a tray of spiced cakes and tarts, the door opened and closed with a soft boom. A tiny man hastened into the chamber, his abundant robes and sleeves trailing behind him.

  Signor Morosini lifted a wizened face and gestured to the carpet-covered benches. "Be seated, be comfortable, eat! I will stand. I do not like to be looked down upon." His eyes were lost in wrinkles as he laughed. He waved at his one attendant who remained in the room, a heavyset man with the sad expression of a weary hound. "Federico here is to be trusted, you may be sure."

  The Raven glanced at Dario and Zafer. They bowed and withdrew, not appearing pleased to leave their master and mistress alone with no one but Margaret for protection. But the pirate seemed relaxed, ignoring their host’s command to be seated, leaning instead against the frescoed wall beside Elayne, not quite near enough to touch her.

  He had not touched her since they left the island. He had barely spoken to her. And yet it seemed as if his presence saturated the very air she breathed.

  Signor Morosini took up a position behind a carved and gilded podium, like a priest about to give a sermon. Federico placed a volume bound in iron straps before him. Morosini opened the book, turning pages while his attendant sorrowfully tasted wine and sweetmeats. Having demonstrated the repast to be harmless, Federico offered the refreshment.

  Elayne carefully waited until the pirate gave thanks—her signal that she could trust the food upon the silver tray before her. Before they left the ship, the pirate had warned her that his dealings with the Case d’Morosini hung in delicate balance. She and Margaret had been cautioned to be courteous and agreeable, so as to cause no undue offense. They shared the entremets, a pleasing selection of little molded cakes and marzipan wafers that reminded Elayne of Lady Melanthe’s fine table, and kept quiet, as was proper.

  After a few silent minutes Morosini wrote, his quill scratching busily as he spoke. "The sum that you are owed..." He paused, glancing from one page to the next. His wrinkled brow wrinkled into even more creases. "...is substantial," he concluded.

  "Sixteen thousand, four hundred eighty-five ducats and four ounces of fine gold," the Raven said, smiling. "I shall not cavil about the grains."

  Morosini laughed. "Nay, I think not. I calculate some four thousand ducats fewer."

  The pirate took a sip of wine. "Let us talk of happier things, then. I pray that your affairs go well, by the grace of God. I recall that galleys carrying Morosini goods ply the waters from Candia to Cyprus. It’s a fine trade—indigo and pearls—I often receive reports of their movements and cargo."

  Signor Morosini looked down at his book. He tilted his head like a wise old squirrel contemplating a winter cache of nuts. "I do not think I have miscalculated," he said reluctantly. "But—let me examine the figures again." As he bent over the book, he said, "It is an excellent thing to see you free to journey abroad without persecution."

  "I rejoice in the opportunity to visit my esteemed friends once again," the pirate said agreeably.

  "But I am pained to hear that God saw fit to destroy so many in the recent tempest. I fear your colleagues lost many of their fine ships of war."

  The Raven looked s
urprised. "Nay, we were blessed to be unscathed, St. Mary be praised. My captains are wise in the way of storm, and went to ground before it struck. I heard that Masara and Susa were obliterated, and many died in shipwreck in Agrigento. Morosini lost nothing, I hope?"

  "Two round ships," the old man said. "God rest the souls of our sailors."

  Elayne felt as if she were watching a game of chess, with plays and counterplays that none but the opponents themselves could fathom. The pirate lied and exaggerated with a frightening, sincerity. After days on this journey, drawing closer to Monteverde with every stroke of the oars, she still had no notion of what he intended. They voyaged as common travelers, leaving all of Il Corvo’s riches and most of his young household behind on the island, his warships smashed on the rocks or scattered to the storm winds. Only the Egyptian’s leaking vessel had stayed afloat— protected by spells, the magician declaimed grandly, to which the pirate had replied merely by smiling and dispatching the surviving crew from his wrecked galleys to commandeer it.

  The voyage seemed to be a matter of money and business, stopping at ports along the way to visit merchants and collect payments in gold. But it was evident enough, listening between the polite words, that these payments were in return for the unspoken promise that the Raven’s brigand warships would not attack the merchant galleys. No one seemed to comprehend that he did not command any fleet or allies now. Or that if they seized him here, there would be no retribution on the sea.

  She felt as if she were walking on water that the pirate made solid by brazen invention and falsehood—that any one of these sharp merchants might have sure news that Il Corvo’s fearsome navy was destroyed, and know enough to see past his ruse.

  The merchants were all exquisitely courteous to the Raven and his party. But Elayne could foresee that the price for detection would be death.