“What? Is there something wrong with him?”
“Oh. No, no,” she assured her friend. “I am thinking sad thoughts…”
“Tell me.”
Nadira sighed. “He has lost his family. A wife and three little children…” Nadira paused, thinking of such a loss. “Many years ago. Ten maybe. Plague.”
Thedra’s eyes were bright behind her scarf and her merriness seemed to fade away. “Oh, dear.”
“But it is wrong of me to put such a pall over the afternoon,” Nadira said. “I am sorry. We were having such fun.”
Thedra smiled a sad smile. “Then let it pass like a cloud over the sun on a summer’s day. Look.” She nodded toward the men. The scrubbing was over; bowls of water were being tossed over their heads and shoulders. Rivulets of sudsing water rolled down the valleys and over the mounds of their muscles. Thedra took in a deep breath. “Lovely,” she sighed. “Soon they will stand and enter the pool.”
Nadira tightened the scarf around her mouth, ready for that. “Yes.”
The men were laughing at some remark DiMarco had made as they turned and made their way to the pool. The women went silent, watching.
Finally Thedra breathed, “Oh my. I am very definitely going to visit your Scotsman. He shares a room with the big yellow one?”
Nadira nodded absently, her eyes on Montrose as he entered the pool. He slowly descended the stone steps into the shimmering water. “Yes.”
“Do you have any advice? I have not visited a frenki man from the north before. What do they like?”
Nadira’s eyes went wide. “What?”
Thedra seemed to find it difficult to take her eyes from the soaking men, but she tore them away to stare at her. “Nadira. Are you telling me that you have traveled months with these men and none have touched you? Have you not tried each one, like the flavors of shaved ice?”
Nadira blushed into her veil. “No.”
“Not even a little?”
“Thedra, are you telling me you think I am their harlot?”
“No. Not their harlot. I am having trouble with the word. There is not a word in Arabic for this. We have one in Turkish. There is definitely one in Greek.”
“You can stop searching for the word. None have taken liberties.”
“But you are the dark one’s…does that mean you are his alone? But not his wife?”
Nadira’s role as neither wife nor servant nor lover made it difficult to answer. She frowned as she turned to her hostess, “He puts me in this place that is no place at all.”
Thedra nodded slowly. “Forgive me, then, for my impudence. Had I been in your position these men would be too weak to ride their horses. It is not my business. I was merely hoping to get information, one woman to another. A little taste before I eat the whole bowl.” Thedra nodded in the direction of the pool. “I envy you. Your man is a fine man as well. He is like a chariot horse, taking the final turn in the hippodrome, extending himself for the last stretch. That is what I see when I look at him.”
Nadira followed her friend’s gaze. Montrose apparently had enough soaking and floating. He waded closer to the edge of the pool, stretching his arms and shoulders.
Thedra nodded to herself. “Dark blue eyes. Like lapis. I had a shepherd with blue eyes once…”
Nadira felt an uncomfortable jealousy. “Alisdair’s eyes are blue as well…but lighter… like the sky,” she suggested, pointing to the Scotsman.
Thedra turned from Montrose and focused on Alisdair. “Yes. Lovely. I am thinking I would like to leave now,” she whispered in a throaty voice.
Nadira had turned her eyes back to Montrose, but managed to whisper back, “Why?”
“Because the spotted one is leaving.”
“Alisdair. His name is Alisdair.”
“Yes, yes. It is not his name that interests me.” Thedra drew in her breath in a ragged way that told Nadira what interested her. “He is magnificent. That is the word for him. A fine, fine word.” She wrapped her veil around her and slid from behind the screen and onto the hidden path. “Do not wait for me,” she hissed over her shoulder as she disappeared.
Nadira sighed. Montrose had acknowledged Alisdair’s departure with a slight wave of his hand. He leaned against the side of the pool not three paces from Nadira, flicking the surface of the water in an absent way. He did not seem to be enjoying the bath as much as the other men who now filled the hall with their echoing greetings. Some lay on low slabs, ready for the masseuses. Others were scrubbed by servants. Montrose seemed to be waiting for the others to finish.
Nadira sought out William, still wandering the edge of the room appearing to admire the decorative tile. Corbett was in the process of being rubbed down. She craned her neck and located Calvin and DiMarco in the water. If Montrose had not been so close she might have been bored. The sight of one naked man is very exciting. The sight of thirty weakens the effect. She smiled to herself. I have gone from naïve to jaded in the space of a few minutes.
Montrose echoed her sigh, bringing her attention back to him. She smiled to herself. He leaned an elbow on the edge of the pool, the rest of him out of sight below the water.
“Robert,” she called to him in a low voice.
He startled, stood up straight and looked around. Water dripped from his hair and little beads of it stood out on the hairs of his chest and arms. She watched his muscles bunch as he readied himself to leap from the pool. She called again.
“It is I, Nadira, behind this screen.”
He came out of the water in a graceful arc, the water sheeting from him and pooling at his feet. He was at the screen in two strides. The blue eyes were amused, peering through the wooden holes.
“You little minx. This was Thedra’s idea, was it not?” he whispered.
“You are correct.
“Where is she now?” He turned his head to the left and right as if he expected to see her weaving in and about among the naked men.
“She is on the hunt,” Nadira laughed quietly. “I was quickly abandoned.”
“I pity her prey.” Montrose rubbed his chin. “Who is the unlucky man?”
“Of course it is Alisdair. She is fascinated by his color.” Nadira could not resist a giggle. “She will turn him inside out.”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I can’t wait to see him tomorrow then. But you will be discovered if I stand here much longer.”
“I can creep back the way I came, but will be exposed where the juncture meets the doorway. I cannot leave until all these men are gone.”
He turned sideways and leaned against the screen to appear as though he were lounging. “I can meet you there and get you through the doorway,” he said.
“How?”
“Cover your face with your scarf. You become a nameless, faceless woman. There are many here.” He nodded towards the other side of the pool. “Those doorways open into smaller chambers each with a lovely denizen waiting for a few coins.”
“Oh.” Nadira wrapped her veil around her face, leaving only her wide eyes above the blue cloth. “Oh.”
He smiled at her discomfiture, but did not wait for her. He began to walk to the doorway and she had to scramble to keep up with him. They met where the hidden path joined the flagstone walkway. He took her elbow and ushered her before him. Nadira could not resist a glance at his naked body before she was steered into the long corridor that lead to the bright street. It was dark and cool in the hallway. A small group of men appeared in the hall on their way to the baths. He turned to her and pressed her to the wall. His big hand pulled down her veil and he bent to kiss her, hiding her from them as they walked by, laughing and speaking in a strange language. When they had passed, Montrose straightened.
“I stand here, naked to the world, exposing my bare arse to merchants from Vienna, all because Thedra thought it would be a great lark to take you to the baths.”
She looked up at him coyly. “I have many veils. One would wrap your loins quite nicely,” she
teased, pulling a veil from around her waist. “This blue one matches your eyes.”
The blue eyes danced with humor. “Let me get dressed and I will take you back to your room.”
Her face fell. “I am always being taken back to my room.”
His eyes softened. “You are right. Perhaps I can take you to the souq instead. Would you like to go shopping?”
Her own eyes lit up. “Oh yes.”
Chapter Nine
Later that night, after Nadira had enjoyed an afternoon in Istanbul’s bazaars, her door opened so forcefully it banged against the wall. Nadira sat up, alarmed, the blanket to her chin. “What is it?”
The men entered the room with candles, bringing the flickering light and casting sharp shadows along the walls. All of them were there. They flung open the casement windows and kicked the furniture around. “What?” She repeated.
“Do you have the Hermetica?” She couldn’t tell who spoke. All of them seemed to be talking at once.
“No. I do not,” she answered. She got up and stood near the door because Calvin had started to rummage through her blankets. She wrapped a shawl around her and slid her feet into her slippers.
“She would not lie,” someone said.
“She doesn’t have it.”
“It is not here.”
“Damn it.”
“Look under the bed.” The bed was lifted like kindling and moved aside. The table and the chest were moved, the candles thrust into the corners.
“It’s gone,” Montrose said to her grimly. “Corbett went to retrieve it from his chest when we returned, and it was gone.”
“I do not have it,” she repeated.
“I told him you would not.”
A scream echoed in from the corridor and froze each man in place. They broke at the same time through her doorway and into the corridor, running toward the sound, the candles extinguished in their haste. Nadira dropped her shawl and ran after them. She lost her slippers in her effort to keep up. The darkness chased them down the stone halls.
Curious heads poked out from doors along the way and Nadira found she was struggling to keep them in sight. After a few moments they had all left her behind, and she was alone, running along the corridor from lamplight to lamplight, following the sounds of their footsteps and the echoes of their distant shouts. The scream came again, louder this time. She made a sharp turn to the left and stopped, panting. No footsteps, no light. She heard the sounds of doors opening and closing and sleepy voices in many languages asking what was wrong, and if there was a fire. Now the sound of an agonized wail reached her ears and she began her chase again. She saw the men ahead of her, clustered around a doorway. She reached them, gasping, and pushed her way under their arms and past their sweating bodies into the room.
William lay on the floor stones, rolling back and forth and weeping with the Hermetica clutched to his chest. Corbett bent over him, but did not touch him. When she approached, Corbett looked down at her with stricken eyes. Montrose put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from kneeling at William’s side. The friar mumbled and sobbed, crying out every few moments with a pitiful wail, “Oh God, Oh God.”
“Wait,” Corbett said.
Calvin brought in one of the lamps that illuminated the hallways at night. When she could see better, Nadira took in the room. It looked as though a great storm had wrecked a ship inside the small confines. There was not a piece of furniture left that was not reduced to splinters. Clothing lay tossed about, and most alarming were the papers and quills and disemboweled books strewn about the floor. Ink spattered like blood against the walls, brutal evidence of the murder of the books.
Alisdair swallowed. “Good God,” he said.
“Let me go to him,” Nadira tried to shake off Montrose’s hand.
Corbett was trembling so hard Garreth put a hand out to steady him. He pointed to the Hermetica. “All right, you take it from him.”
When Montrose released her shoulder she knelt at William’s side, took the book in one hand and tried to pull it slowly from his grip. He cried out again and tried to roll up with the Hermetica pressed against his middle. She did not release her hold on the cover. Calvin, still the keeper of the light, backed against the door and closed it against the crowd of curious faces in the hall.
She sat on the floor and braced her feet against the wall. Garreth pried William’s fingers up one by one, only then was she was able to free the book from the friar’s grasp. Montrose lifted her, Hermetica and all, into the air then set her feet on the floor beside him. William screamed again once, then lay silent, his eyes wide and staring, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Corbett was at her side in an instant and snatched the Hermetica from her arms. He tilted it against Calvin’s light and inspected the pages.
“It is undamaged.” His relief was profound. They all took in the broken and torn books scattered across the room. The Hermetica was the only one intact. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. “I am taking this back to my quarters right now.” He glared at everyone. “I will have to explain all this.” He nodded toward the door. “No doubt our host has been awakened.”
Calvin opened the door and handed the lamp to Alisdair. He pushed the onlookers aside for Corbett and disappeared behind him. Garreth closed the door. Nadira knelt at William’s side again, and put a hand gingerly on his forehead.
“What happened?” Alisdair frowned.
“My guess is that he sampled the endpapers.” Montrose said and splayed his hand over his side. Nadira knew he was remembering his own encounter with Brother Henry. The old monk had raised his hands and smashed Montrose against a wall, crushing his ribs.
Garreth blew out a great breath. He, too, had witnessed what the Hermetica had done to Henry.
“How did he get it?” Nadira wondered. The book had been guarded like a king’s ransom for weeks.
Montrose knelt beside her. “Corbett trusted him. I am certain he regrets it now. He has been feeding the friar books since they first met.” He touched William’s face, blotched red and white with emotion and exertion. “Corbett never dreamed William would take it because he knew Will was afraid of it.”
“Is that why they thought I had it?”
“Yes.”
William began to move, making mewling sounds and flailing his limbs. Nadira looked at Montrose. “Give him to me,” she said softly.
Montrose put his hands under William and lifted him into a sitting position then held him upright as Nadira moved to comfort him.
“Oh no,” she whispered. With a shaking hand she pointed to sticky smears on the stone floor. All eyes followed as she moved her hand to indicate the friar’s back. William’s cassock was soaked red with blood from his shoulders to his knees.
“He is injured?” Montrose was incredulous.
“How could that happen?” Nadira breathed. “Was there someone else here?” She tugged at the hem of the bloody cassock and Garreth helped her pull it up and over his head. William was naked beneath it, his skin white except from his shoulders to his buttocks where he was red and black and blue. Fresh strips of flesh hung crisscrossed along his shoulder blades alongside healing scabbed stripes and fully healed white streaks of scars. Her stomach churned and she looked away. Even the men paled at the sight.
She breathed slowly to settle her stomach and asked. “What caused these wounds?”
“I ken what they are.” Alisdair raised the lamp and peered around the room, looking for something. He found it. He bent to the floor, kicked aside a flurry of loose paper and picked up what looked like a stick with many leather strings tied to one end. He brought it to Nadira who recoiled. The end of each leather thong contained a tiny metal spur. The leather was bloody and short bits of golden brown hair adhered to the leather handle.
She swallowed. “I can see it is a weapon. Who hit him with it?”
“He hit himself, lass. This is a flail.”
“What?”
The men looked to Montrose who shook his
head, adjusting William in his arms. The friar’s head lolled against his chest, his whole body now limp. “You tell her,” he said. “I have not the heart.”
Alisdair came down to the floor and his eyes were kind. “’Tis a flail. The priests use it to punish themselves.”
“Punish?” Nadira was still unclear.
Montrose sighed. “She has no concept of sin, Alisdair. She will never understand.”
Alisdair’s voice was patient. “When the wee lad sins, he uses this,” Alisdair waved the bloody weapon, “to beat the sin outta his body.”
Nadira narrowed her eyes. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
Alisdair laid the flail on the floor. “By the looks of that, the lad had many sinful thoughts lately.” He gestured toward the friar’s shoulders.
“What do you mean?” Nadira frowned. “Thoughts about the book?”
The men exchanged dark looks then turned to stare pointedly at her. Nadira returned their stares, willing their meaning to come to her. It did. “Oh, no.” She cringed, looking at William. “You can’t mean me?”
“Aye, lass. It can’t be helped. The lad wants you. But, alas, yon big laird,” he nodded toward Montrose, “and his God stand between you.”
“Oh no.” She remembered putting her arms over William’s shoulders, and how he had winced. She remembered how he shuddered when she took his hand in friendship and affection. She tightened her face in anger at herself for being so blind, but could not sustain it. Pity overwhelmed her instead.
“Ach, so now the lass will cry. I hate when she does that.” Alisdair turned away and went to the door. “I’ll be keepin’ the other folks out,” he said. Garreth sniffed loudly in the corner.
Montrose looked at her kindly. “Just like Richard, little one. All who know you, love you.”
“Love should not hurt. It should not be so difficult.”
He gave a short laugh. “Love always hurts.”
She deflected, “He needs this treated so it will not fester. Some of the older wounds are an angry red. I can get the unguents and honey and wine and linen from Thedra. I want him out of this room.” She rubbed her eyes.
The Necromancer's Grimoire Page 16