Rogue Sword

by Poul Anderson

  She stirred. One hand reached forth and touched his face. “Oh!” she whispered. “I was afraid--Where did you go?”

  “My errand could have been less ethereal,” he chuckled, “but I really did go to look at the stars.”

  He thought from her movement that she must also have glanced up at that glittering sprawl. “They are still like home,” she said.

  His lips brushed her cheek. She threw an arm around his neck, drawing him close. He hesitated an instant. But the devil take it! Everyone except the lookouts was asleep. . . . His mouth sought hers.

  In the morning the fleet continued. Lucas stilled hunger, like the other travelers, with a bite of hardtack; he looked forward to the midday meal Djansha would prepare, even though the fire hazard caused frying to be forbidden. His fellow passengers had become individuals to him, rather than an ill-smelling horde, and he fell into agreeable talk with a native Euboean. The man had a small harp with him, which Lucas borrowed. His singing and playing drew a crowd and he was offered refreshment from many wineskins. The wind held fair, promising a fast transit beyond Gallipoli; whitecaps danced on the sea. It was remote, of no real consequence, that they passed a fisher village lately burned to the ground.

  The tender resumed its errand, patiently weaving between the ships, and finally reached this one. Lucas leaned far over the side, clinging to a shroud, to watch. Overhauling from behind, the boat called for a towline and was drawn alongside. Rather than accept a sailor’s hand to pull him up the low freeboard at the waist, the passenger stood on his dignity and insisted on a rope ladder. It was dropped from the poop deck, beneath which the boat was then tethered, and he climbed up; a young man in good Italian clothes, sword at hip, who addressed the captain in Venetian.

  “I have a message and a warrant from the Bailo in Constantinople. It has to be executed before this fleet passes the narrows and goes its various ways, for otherwise action may come too late. I have been going about all day yesterday, far into the night. A private talk--”

  The captain led the way down to the main deck and into his cabin. The crowd broke up, buzzing with curiosity. Lucas reseated himself on the barrel he had been using and strummed the harp absent-mindedly, scowling.

  Djansha curled herself up at his feet and rested her head on his knee. “Is something wrong, my lord?”

  “I wish I could be certain,” he muttered. “A warrant from the Bailo. This has a bad look. I’ve never heard of the like.”

  “Must we turn about?” The Euboean wrung his hands. “Oh, horrible! If I don’t get home soon I’ll have no chance whatsoever to buy my olive oil wholesale. The saints forbid!”

  “Offer them candles,” suggested Lucas. His mind added: Or else a sheep. Alarmed, for such thoughts were said to be caused by invisible fiends, he smote the harp and broke into a ballad of Roland.

  Presently the captain leaned out of the door and summoned four sailors by name. He talked to them inside. They emerged and went below. When they returned carrying pikes, silence fell over the deck.

  Lucas wet his lips. “No,” he said through the noise of his own heartbeat, “I do not like this at all.” He slipped a hand under his doublet. The requirement had been reasonable that he, a commoner, leave his sword with the captain; the dagger he concealed in its place was little comfort.

  I’m borrowing trouble, he told himself. This has nothing to do with me. I hope.

  The captain and the Venetian stranger emerged. The latter held an unrolled paper with an official seal. The captain signaled to his pikemen. Barefoot, the sailors moved across the deck as quietly as tigers. The passengers made way, crowding to either side, unspeaking, frightened. Lucas nudged Djansha toward the poop. He looked for a ladder, if--

  The captain saw him and pointed. “That’s the man.” The quarterdeck voice rolled across the muffled drumbeat timing the oars. “Same looks as you told me, and he calls himself Lucas Greco.”

  “Then arrest him,” said the newcomer, “in the name of the Republic of Venice!”

  Chapter IV

  Djansha cried out and snatched Lucas’ hand. He shook her off without taking his eyes from the messenger. A mumble swept through the packed watchers, like the first sough before a hailstorm.

  “No!” Lucas shouted. “This is some connivance of my enemies!” He had no idea what he would say next, but the vision of fetters raised his tones to a roar. “Captain, arrest that impostor! “

  “What?” The skipper blinked. “But, but he’s from the Bailo.”

  “He says!” Lucas forced his mouth into a sarcastic grin. “What’s his touchstone?”

  “This.” The messenger held up the paper.

  “Can you read it, Captain?”

  “N-no,” stammered the mariner. “D' you think me a priest? But he told me--”

  Dim as one star seen through a winter tempest, his plan came to Lucas. He shot a look around. Between him and the others was a clear space, perhaps two yards wide, with the passengers and idle crewmen forward of it. Behind him rose the poop. He pushed the girl a little aft. He himself moved toward the messenger.

  “I have enemies,” he stormed. “I didn’t imagine they’d be so bold as to take the name of the State in vain. Yes, and falsify an official seal! O God of justice, strike down this knave!”

  Going red and then white, the Venetian sputtered, “I have never heard such impudence in my life! All men know me, Zorzi da Carrara, assistant to his excellency the Bailo. This wretch dares--” He became incoherent.

  Lucas snatched the paper from him. “Do you call this a warrant?” he sneered. Zorzi opened his mouth. “Silence, you lying rogue! Let me show you, Captain, how clumsy a forgery this is. See here--”

  All the while, he scanned the writing. A chill fastened upon him. This was indeed a properly secured document, demanding the arrest of Lucco or Lucas, nicknamed Greco, natural son of the late Pietro Torsello, on several sworn accusations. Assault and robbery did not surprise him. It followed almost as a matter of course that he should be charged with breaking the confines, fleeing the jurisdiction in which he stood accused, even though he had not been notified. What brought the blood draining from his heart was the count of desertion. Which was stated to be a capital offense!

  Venice had not been at war when he fled. Nor was there then a death penalty for bolting from armed service. It must have been decreed subsequently, during the long conflict with Genoa. But that made no difference to his case: not in Venice. At least, not if so powerful and vindictive an enemy as Gasparo Reni were to ask for the severest judgment.

  The fact remained, he had left the arbalestiers without permission. The boy had given that matter no thought; the man would be hung in an iron cage and starved to death.

  Gasparo, beyond question, had wrought this. Without his urging, surely no one would have troubled about such ancient peccadillos. A fine might have been set. Or, quite likely, no punishment at all. But Gasparo, thought Lucas, each realization streaking across the clamor in his skull, Gasparo had gone to the Bailo, made out an affidavit (perjuring himself about the alleged assault, but that was safe enough; who could reconstruct a street brawl with certainty?)--he had used his influence, possibly a substantial bribe as well, all to destroy one penniless wanderer.

  The insane malevolence of it shook Lucas as much as his own danger. The man must be possessed!

  Zorzi da Carrara took the warrant back from lax fingers. “Captain,” he said frostily, “if you are foolish enough to heed this rascal for one moment, then there are worthy men aboard my ship who can identify me and my office. He is to be taken in irons to Venice and held until his accuser--”

  What he must do came back to Lucas, driving out that horror of Gasparo which had crawled under his skin.

  His performance had only been to divert attention. There was no chance, there had never been any, to escape by cunning. But he stood next to one of the pike-bearing sailors. They were all agape, staring at the Venetian signor.

  Now!

  Lu
cas gauged the spot on a bare, hairy stomach. Just under the breastbone. He seized the pikeshaft with both hands. His foot came up, into the solar plexus. The wind went from the seaman. He reeled backward.

  Lucas recoiled in the other direction, grasping the pike. The captain yelled. Lucas swept the heavy weapon in an arc. It clopped on the captain’s temple. He tumbled to the deck.

  “Djansha!” said Lucas. “Up the ladder! Climb!”

  He had no chance to see if she obeyed. Another pike was thrusting toward him. He swayed aside, letting it pass. His own lowered shaft went between the wielder’s legs. The man tangled with it. Lucas shoved on his end of the improvised lever. Man and pike flipped across the planks.

  A third steel point threatened Lucas. He evaded that one, too, bouncing directly up to the sailor. The man rasped an oath and drew back one fist. Lucas kneed him in the groin. As he doubled over, Lucas hit him on the neck with the edge of one hand. He fell like a mealsack.

  The Mongols knew how to fight!

  Stooping, Lucas snatched up the fellow’s pike and cast it. The fourth sailor bellowed and sat down, blood running from a gashed shoulder. The second one was getting up, reaching for his own dropped weapon. Lucas got there first. The mariner fled him.

  Messer Zorzi drew sword and lunged. Lucas gave him the butt of the pike in the pit of the stomach.

  Mere seconds had passed. The crowd, now in a shouting turmoil, would hinder the crew for another minute or so. But then a score would attack him. Lucas bounded up the ladder.

  Djansha stood on the poop, hands clasped together, calling her gods for help. The steersmen cursed at their oars. But when Lucas appeared with pike in hand, they squalled and scuttled off to the main deck. Lucas yanked Djansha over to the taffrail and slapped her. She stopped wailing and stared at him, open-mouthed. He pointed to the Jacob’s ladder. “Go down that and be ready to jump into the boat,” he snapped.

  Tucking the pike under one arm, he hauled on the tow-line with more strength than he had known was in him. The rowboat bumped against the galley stern. Lucas went over the side. He slid down the cord. The two sailors there demanded blasphemously to know what was wrong on deck.

  Lucas scrambled past them to the stern, wheeled about, and poised his weapon. “I’m bound ashore,” he said. “Sit down! Start rowing! The first one who makes trouble will get this in his guts!”

  “What in Satan’s name--!”

  Lucas jabbed a thigh, drawing blood. He whipped the shaft back before it could be seized. “Row!” he spat.

  Djansha stepped from the ladder to the foresheets and cast off. A gaggle of faces appeared at the galley rail. But God be praised, they were still in utter confusion up there! Lucas braced himself as his captives took their oars. One bold sweep could knock him overboard. His eyes caught those of the nearer sailor; he grinned and jerked his pike. Hastily, the man put oars between tholes.

  “You’ll come to no harm if you get us ashore,” Lucas promised them. “But they’ll be shooting at us with crossbows and ballistae before we’re out of the fleet. I can swim, but I know how few seamen have mastered that art. So crack your thews, lads!”

  The boat sprang forward.

  “My lord, what is happening?” choked Djansha.

  Lucas managed to grin. How her hair shone in the sunlight! “Certain persons wish to make me a prisoner,” he said. “But, as that would take me away from you, I shall fight them with the strength of a hundred bears.”

  Even then, she reddened, and her long lashes fluttered. The galley fell behind. Another loomed close. Its captain leaned over to shout: “What’s the trouble over there? Where are you headed?”

  “After help!” Lucas called. “A gang of mutineers are trying to seize our vessel. I think they mean to run it aground for the Catalans to plunder. Go give help, I pray you! “

  He left chaos behind, which was carried ahead of him by stentorian lungs. Despite everything, he laughed.

  A splash in the water ended his jollity. He looked behind. The nearest of the several ships he had passed was coming about. Up on the forecastle, a team of men rewound a stone-throwing ballista. So . . . the fleet officers had at last gotten the true story. Now they must put on speed, and make pious vows.

  “Row, you sons of noseless bitches! Row!”

  He heard the snap and clunk of the ballista, and another missile hit the sea, close enough to drench him. “Djansha,” he asked, “can you swim?” She stared mutely. “Can you--oh, curse it--can you keep yourself up in water? Like a fish?”

  She shook her head.

  Well, thought Lucas, if the boat was hit, that would be the end of her. It was best, he supposed. Better than Gasparo’s patrons, anyhow .... He looked at her again, and she offered him an uncertain smile. By all her heathen gods! He could not swim off while she drowned! It wasn’t possible. She would come back to him in dreams, with weeds growing from her mouth. No, let him try to carry her along, arid if he failed, let them drink the sea together.

  What lunacy had ever made him lead her off in the first instance? He groaned.

  Another ship lay ahead: a cheland, lighter and swifter than the galleys. Its oarsmen churned the water white and it moved across his bow.

  “Starboard! Hard a-starboard!” Lucas shook his pike and threw Arabic obscenities at the other vessel.

  An iron point smote the side of his craft. Was he really in crossbow range? The cheland didn’t look near enough . . . Oh, yes, it was monstrously near, almost on top of him. He would crash into those centipede oars in one more minute--A quarrel buzzed before his nose.

  He swallowed until enough spittle came back for him to talk. “You see, lads,” he told the sailors, “I was right. This is no healthy spot, so don’t linger. Here, I’ll set the time for you. Thus: aSTERN of us are UGly men. Our LIVES they will not SPARE. Our HANDsomeness has STRICKen them quite GREEN. They KNOW that if we MAKE our port beFORE they’ve blundered THERE, the HARbor girls will SWARM o’er us and TREAT us very FAIR: to wit, igNORE those UGly men and KISS us everyWHERE. But IF you eat a CROSSbow bolt you’ll NEVer hug yon QUEAN!--”

  The boat went astern of the cheland, so near that their wakes crossed. For a moment it sleeted quarrels. Several struck deep into planking. The foremost sailor whimpered and lost the stroke, as one shaft buried itself in the thwart inches from his hip. “Row, I told you!” bawled Lucas. “Are you deaf?” The boat surged shoreward again.

  And then, as if struggling out of a fever dream, they cleared the convoy. Lucas snatched another glance behind. Ships were strung out far over the blue water. But they were not pursuing him into the shoals. Two boats had been manned and were after him. He saw sunlight wink on a helmet, a quarter-mile off.

  The shore ahead rose abruptly from a narrow beach. A row of cottages lay near, but there was no sign of man or livestock, nor any boats drawn up under those poles where fishnets were meant to dry. Orchards and crop fields stretched untended beneath the still, shimmering sky. All the people had fled.

  Lucas realized he was atremble with reaction. His own sweat stank in his nostrils. He made himself sit at ease, contemplate serenity, as the Cathayan monks advised; he drew a few long slow breaths in place of gasping. All his strength would soon be needed.

  “Djansha,” he said, “spring ashore the moment we ground.”

  Her murmur carried to him through the descending quietness: “Oh, my lord, you overcame them all!”

  “That’s a pleasant way to phrase it.” He nodded at the sailors. “I thank you, my lads. When the boat goes ashore, push the oars out, hard. You’ll understand I don’t want you clubbing me. But still I thank you for your trouble, and if ever we meet again, I’m not the one who won’t stand you a flask of good wine.”

  One man gave him a dull glare, but the other laughed.

  The bottom grated. Djansha waded up onto the grass. The sailors thrust their oars from them. “Farewell,” said Lucas, and followed his girl. The two men slumped an instant, then splashed after the oars. They wer
e much too tired to attempt his capture.

  Others would do that. Lucas trotted inland with Djansha. “Quickly,” he warned. “We must be out of bowshot before those two boats arrive. I doubt the men will chase us far, though. This is too hazardous a place.”

  “For us also?” she panted. Her slippers were hardly suitable cross-country footgear. But hurry she must!

  “Less so than what we’ve escaped.” He gave himself to his jog-pace. Thought continued: I may well be a liar. What do I know of the company ravaging this land? Or we may meet an Imperial army. . . . Even if we elude all those perils, where can we go?

  Where would I even desire to go? he asked himself wearily.

  They hastened by the smokeless huts and onto a rutted dirt road, which wound upward as the land rolled higher. Lucas cut directly across the bends, over fence and hedge and field. Before long Djansha was exhausted, her gown torn, her ankles scratched and muddy. He gave her an arm, choking down anger. She could not fairly be blamed for lacking a man’s strength, yet she dragged on him and slowed him. When he looked behind, he glimpsed four or five tiny figures in pursuit.

  But they were gone from view once he had topped a ridge. In a way that was comforting. Yet it would have been still better to know with certainty that they had given up. Well--

  A broad olive orchard came into sight. Lucas led Djansha over the fence rails. “Carefully, now,” he said. “Leave no traces of our passage. . . . Good enough, if the saints are kind. I invoke especially St. Ananias. Come!”

  The air was cool under the trees. The land brooded silent, except for the birds who were happy to be no longer molested. Nonetheless, when she emerged from the other side, Djansha was lurching on her feet.

  “I think we can rest awhile,” said Lucas.

  She lay down on the grass and shuddered.

  He sat chewing a straw. The sunlight beat on his shoulders. God’s wounds, but he was hungry! Only now did he notice. But his stomach was one cavern of hunger. Across the fields he saw a poplar-shaded house with its outbuildings, doubtless the center of this plantation--but empty as the fisher cabins. He wondered if he dared stop long enough to break in, on the chance of finding some bread or a cheese overlooked in the flight. Or even silver; he would need means of purchase. He shook the girl. “Up,” he said. She raised eyes gone pale. “I cannot.”