“When have I ever said aught I did not mean, my lady?”
“But you cannot—you must not bind yourself so! It would be madness! To defend yourself—to defend another—you may have to kill!” She seized him again by the arm and shook him fiercely. “Oh, you fool, Marco! With enemies all round you, will you take that wild oath?”
“My lady, do not distress yourself. I am not offering my throat to the knife like a sheep.”
“Marco, it is madness!” she cried. “To disarm yourself so—oh, you must not!”
“No, my lady. It is not a matter of an oath, nor of binding myself.” His voice was steady, gentle, with an odd undertone of amusement as though he mocked at himself. “It is that I cannot kill a man, ever again. Just that.”
She was still gripping his arm as though to restrain him by sheer force, so that her fingers ached from pressure on hard muscle and harder bone. This might be a splendid gesture, a renunciation of evil that should have delighted her after all her prayers for him, but in the face of his ranked enemies it seemed liker to deliberate suicide. Tears thickened her throat and almost strangled her voice. “Marco, you must not!” she repeated helplessly.
He laid his hand lightly over hers for a brief instant, and continued quietly as if to himself. “Killing is easy, too easy. Today I helped to save men, and their lives were more to me than all the treasures of Byzantium. My lady, what else matters?”
“Come with me to my father! Perhaps he can drive sense into you!” Rodriga exclaimed desperately, and towed him down the stair at a run, taking this problem to Landry as she had taken all others in her life. He came in silence before Landry, who was waiting in anticipatory glee for the account of their foes’ discomfiture, and stood in silence while Rodriga blurted out the stark fact of his insanity.
Landry heaved himself up on his cushions, thrust his fingers through his hair, and gazed from his agitated daughter, very near to tears, to the quiet man behind her. The wavering yellow lamp-flame showed the slight smile on his mouth. Landry sighed. He had forty years’ longer experience of life and men than his daughter. Rant and oaths and windy protestations he would have discounted, but he knew what to make of this amused quiet.
“You choose the Devil’s own risky moment to take this resolve!”
“I did not take it. And do not imagine I have renounced all means of self-defence.”
“Just that of finishing the good work, eh? And you will know better than I do the number of your enemies.”
He grinned. “I have never counted them. But once I heard a story of a hero who fought a monster with many heads, and for every head he cut off three others sprang from the neck. It is in my mind that enemies may be like that monster.”
“It is in mine that dead men do not bite! Come here, you young fool!” He scrutinised the dark bearded face by the flickering light, and grunted between exasperation and amusement. “Nothing any of us can say will budge you, I see.”
“So you will have done with fruitless argument and wash your hands of me?”
“You are of my household now, and my concern!” He pushed his hair into a crest and glared at Marco from under it, considering him in what most men would reckon an unnerving manner. Marco sustained it without a change of countenance, and Landry grunted again. He had an uncommonly eloquent vocabulary of grunts. Then he straightened himself and made a decisive gesture with one hand. All at once he was no longer an elderly, irritable and comic invalid, but a wise and formidable commander of men. “Tomorrow morning you will seek out Father Augustine and lay the whole before him.”
“Ensuring that as my guardian devil withdraws his protection I replace him with a Christian angel?” Marco gently mocked him.
“Just that,” Landry answered, unoffended. “Since you are set on this. Heavenly protection is the only one that will avail you.” Marco chuckled. “So be it,” he agreed, and went out to the anteroom. Landry watched him drop the curtain, absently tousling his red hair into the semblance of an abandoned bird’s nest, and grunted again.
Rodriga sniffled and drew her sleeve across her stinging eyes. “Could you not have prevented him? He will be killed!” she protested in a whisper.
“His way has been shown to him,” said Landry very gravely, “and it is not for us who are his friends to set obstacles for his feet. He is on the brink of finding his soul, and what is death beside salvation?”
CHAPTER XVI
Marco was so long gone that Rodriga became uneasy and then frankly anxious, despite Landry’s assurances that an ambush was not practicable in a populous city by daylight. She was not normally a restless girl, but she roamed the house, picked up her sewing and set it down, harried Helga and Urraca over their tasks, and at intervals went up to the grid-hot roof to look for him, until Landry testily bade her choose a place and an occupation and stick to them instead of hopping about like a flea on a performing monkey, and she meekly took up her needle and tried to concentrate on a plain seam.
Then the curtain lifted, and utter astonishment struck Rodriga dumb. Marco it was, but for a moment recognition waited on comprehension; the man coming across the floor was beardless. He was tall and lean with a trim black head, he carried himself with the familiar tautness of a drawn bow, but the sharp point of dark beard that had given its emphasis to his whole face was gone, and the unweathered skin looked curiously pale against the deep tan above it. His chin was square rather than pointed, which greatly changed him, and for the first time she could see the full strength and humour of his hard mouth.
As he stood over them, smiling slightly, she saw that something else had gone. The wary distrust of all mankind which had once looked out of his eyes had given place to a sure calm. He said without preamble, “I am confirmed into the Church. I have confessed and received absolution and taken Communion.”
“That is good hearing, and God be praised for it,” said Landry gravely, while Rodriga’s eyes flooded with thankfulness that held her mute. This was what she had prayed for, and she felt that gladness must burst her breast. “And your resolve?” Landry asked.
“I have sworn an oath before the altar.”
Landry regarded him for a moment, and his lips twitched. “The Saints have a particular care for madmen, drunkards and little children,” he observed dryly. “Commend yourself to them.”
“In which capacity?” Marco asked, laughed softly, and left them. Rodriga thrust her suspended needle into her work, exchanged pregnant looks with Landry and followed him. She found him on the roof, sitting against the parapet with his eyes on the sea. Belatedly she realised that he might have sought privacy, but he turned his head, and his eyes welcomed her. He started to rise, but she signed to him to stay as he was and sat facing him.
“I am so very glad,” she said quietly.
“You led me to it, my lady.”
She nodded. This moment was the fruit of that other on the seashore. He went on reflectively, as if thinking aloud.
“It was like—like a river running into the sea. There could be no other end. Certainly not, once Father Augustine had his hands on me. Vestments and tonsures and Latin, carping and argument and doctrine, an old eagle of a Bishop who tore me to pieces with questions, and then all kindness and help and rejoicing, and the love of Christ about me.” He was silent for a time; then he lifted a hand to his shaven chin, and added with a grin, “This seemed a fitting gesture.”
She nodded again; wearing a beard was a Saracen custom rather than Christian, among men who could afford a barber’s services, and removing it a symbol she might have expected of Marco. “I like it,” she said. The piebald appearance was odd, but a few days’ sun and his natural swarthiness would make an end of that. But the beard was irrelevant. Rodriga had lain long awake the night before, and the black hours after midnight and her deep anxiety had induced some constructive thought. “And now?” she asked bluntly. “What will you do?”
“Do, my lady?”
“Have you no thought for your future?”
A little cold finger of horror touched her spine at his casual acceptance of those alternatives, but she persisted doggedly. “You have given up both your safeguard and your livelihood.”
“My livelihood? Oh!” He chuckled again. “My lady, it would be a very meagre livelihood, and most unchancy, if I depended on earning it in Acre with my knife. Christians mostly prefer to kill their enemies in person.” He smiled crookedly as she stared. “I have killed for payment, true, but it does not provide a regular living.”
“Then you have lived by honest trading?”
One eyebrow lifted. “My lady, a trader’s first asset is honesty. Cheat a man once, and you bid farewell for ever to his custom and your ill-fame runs before you through the markets.”
Sir Jehan de Jornec had once praised Marco’s scrupulous adherence to the terms of a bargain, and for all the knightly prejudice against merchants in which she had been reared, there was hard sense in his statement, beside the point of honour he did not make. He would not stoop to deceit. But that was not her immediate concern, and she returned to her object. “Marco, can you not trade elsewhere?”
He stared at her. “Where, my lady?”
“You have so many enemies in this land, Marco, and so few friends. And now you have taken this vow, it—it is an invitation to murder! But if you leave this country and go where you have no foes—”
He smiled. “I always found new foes spring out of the ground, my lady.”
“Marco, in a new place you could live out your life in honour, and not—not be stabbed in—in the back by a ribald who dares not face you, or lied to—to the gallows by a perjured recreant whom all men praise as a pious Christian knight!” she cried, her voice cracking with urgent entreaty and tears gathering in her eyes.
A swift scrambling movement brought him to his knees beside her. “My lady, my lady, do not distress yourself for me!” he exclaimed. “My life or death are no matter! Surely you do not weep for me?” She dashed a hand angrily across her eyes. “It does matter to me!” she said hotly. “You are my friend, and I cannot bear to think of you murdered or hanged! And that is what it will come to if you stay in this country, as you know!”
“I always reckoned it inevitable,” he agreed wryly, sitting back on his heels. “And life no great prize to trouble for.” He looked steadily into her blurred eyes, and then asked gravely, “My lady, this is truly your desire?”
“Yes, oh yes!”
“Since that dawn on the sands my life has been yours, my lady, to do with as you wish.”
Her lips parted to speak, before the implications of that avowal held her dumb for a moment. But she had taken that responsibility on herself that morning which seemed so long ago, and was now glad of it. “You will go where you are not known, and live by trade?” she persisted, not to be contented until she had won a promise.
“Yes, my lady.” He brought his feet from under him and sat cross-legged. “It will not be difficult,” he reassured her. “I know all the Eastern trade, especially drugs and spices.”
“Will you need money to set up? For I have the Saracen loot, and we owe you a share for that night.”
“I thank you, my lady, but I am not penniless.” She looked a little doubtfully at his coarse linen tunic, and remembered that the Eastern trade had been crippled by the Crusade. He smiled and explained. “I have savings, since I have no stomach for wine, whores or dice and this land offers little else for spending.” She saw the first flame of enthusiasm light in his face. “It promises entertainment, my lady!”
“You know the sea, too!” She checked on that, for his experience of the sea had been bitter indeed, but he nodded and turned to look out over the harbour, his harsh dark face suddenly eager. He drew a deep breath, and his head lifted as he gazed out over the crowded masts and rigging to the full breadth of the Mediterranean glittering in the fierce sunlight, out to the hard clear line of the horizon. “Even though you suffered at the hands of a drunken brute, you liked the sea and ships, Marco?”
He smiled at her. “Can you look into my mind, my lady? It was my heart’s desire as a child to be a ship’s captain.”
“Why not? Oh, Marco, that would be the perfect way!”
“There is more to being a ship’s captain than a ship’s boy,” he said dryly, “but if the Saints I have been commended to preserve me long enough from shipwreck I shall doubtless learn.” But he could not mask his feelings with cynical speech; eagerness was springing in him as in some young lad scenting adventure for the first time, perhaps as in that lad years ago who had first stood on a lifting deck with Heaven knew what a wonder of dreams in his heart, before brutal reality betrayed them. His eyes were alight, his mouth curving into a smile. Perfect indeed; it would give him adventure for heart and body, responsibility for other men’s lives and goods, escape from the condemning tongues of Acre. He might range where he pleased in the cleanest of freedoms, with his new-found faith to light him.
“Oh, if I had been a boy I should envy you!” she cried, quickened to an enthusiasm that matched his.
“Under the best of captains a ship’s boy’s is an unenviable life,” he answered, chuckling. “But a ship’s captain to my mind need not envy a King.” He twisted up to his knees with something of a boy’s impetuousness and folded his arms on the parapet. The steady wind ruffled his short black hair about his face, where the untanned skin was already reddened by the sun. “What folly did I bleat about dagger or rope?” he exclaimed scornfully. “You and your priest have taught me more sense today than all my years have done!”
“You say it as if you were grey!” she mocked him. He could not be over thirty, though it was hard to judge his harshly angular features, that would scarcely alter before old age. “Do you know how old you are, Marco?”
“As it chances, yes. I was born the same week King Amalric defeated the Sultan Nur ed-Din at Krak. That was the September of ’63, so I am almost eight-and-twenty, my lady.” He jumped to his feet, suddenly afire to clothe their plans with reality. Then he checked. “My lady, do not think I shall desert your service so long as your enemies menace you.”
She caught the hand he extended and was lifted up. “Since we each entangled the other in this coil, it is right and just that we should find its end together,” she agreed. “Are you going now to the harbour?”
“Where else?”
They were half-way down the stair when a sudden doubt assailed Rodriga. “Marco, can a ship be bought in Acre?”
He looked at her, and his lips twitched. “My lady, that is yet to be discovered.” They burst out laughing together.
An air of gaiety seemed to pervade the house that day. Landry struggled out to the stair and was assisted down it to the shade of the colonnade, and Juan also wobbled about on uncertain legs. Marco returned from the waterfront during the afternoon, shook his head in answer to Rodriga’s unspoken question, and carried a pitcher of water up to the anteroom. He had the Saracen habit of bathing daily, which did not enhance his popularity with Helga and Urraca who had to bring in water, especially as Rodriga decided it was a custom worth adopting and promptly adopted it.
That evening they supped together in the colonnade as a household for the first time, and Rodriga was inspired to celebrate it by bringing forth her battered lute. Pablo produced his flute, and they made music for songs gathered up across half the breadth of Christendom; love-songs, marching-songs, laments, snatches of old gestes, dance songs that set feet twitching. Piers, who had joined them, added a tuneful, well-taught tenor to Landry’s growl and Rodriga’s boyish treble. Marco, who could never before have shared a simple and honest pleasure in friendly company, watched and listened, withdrawn from their enjoyment. No one openly heeded his silence, and in the end he relaxed and even hummed a chorus with them. It was late when they dispersed happily to their beds.
Acre was at its best in the dawn, but few were afoot to see it save women an
d servants about their marketing and pious souls going to Mass. The latter were scarce indeed; victory had loosed all bonds of discipline and decency, so that morning brought a sour and sorry wakening to most men. The first Mass of the day was Rodriga’s choice; she had reason to prefer empty streets.
Helga, Diego and Marco accompanied her. Marco greeted her with a wry grin. He had roused the household last night by crying out in his sleep, bringing everyone from bed, and Urraca had been bitterly outspoken. His suggestion that he sleep in the stables had been flatly rejected by Landry, who asserted that night alarms kept men alert. Rodriga was keenly aware that he, who had lived all his years alone, could not easily accustom himself to life in a household, and she determined to say a special prayer for him this morning.
Today he did not wait outside, but stood and knelt behind her through the Mass. A priest nodded a greeting, regarding him with interest; the story of a notorious sinner’s repentance must be a new wonder in clerical conversation through the city. When the Mass was over he came up to speak to him. Rodriga had noted before how tenderly a repentant sinner was treated, and the more notorious the sinner the greater tenderness was shown by those who had been privileged to redeem him. She went to offer her own prayers before the Mother of God, and when she looked again he was the incongruous centre of a group of priests. Rodriga had to bite her lip to quell irreverent laughter.
Helga’s unmistakable giggle quenched her mirth. She jerked round to frown rebuke at the dark corner just inside the door, and the frown froze on her face. Lothaire de Gallenard was stooping his tow-head to whisper in her ear, and Helga was listening complacently, when any virtuous wife should quit him instantly. For a moment rage at his effrontery and her immodesty held Rodriga rigid; then she stalked forward.
Helga uttered a squeak and twisted away from her companion, betraying that his arm had been about her waist. Seeing Rodriga’s face as she advanced, she shrank against the wall and stood whimpering, her hands over her face. Lothaire de Gallenard straightened, looking faintly disconcerted. Vicious hatred glinted from his pale eyes, and then urbanity masked it. He bowed.
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