Elias said, “I still don’t see how Lord Silva can blame you. How is an avalanche your fault?”
Lord Antoni said, “Vittor did not die right away. By some miracle, I found myself clinging to a large rock. I thought everyone else was gone until they burst through the snow and swept right by me.” Lord Antoni’s hand curved around the empty glass. “I was able to pull Grec and Braga onto the rock, and a few others, but by the time Vittor was close enough to reach, I could not hold on. Silva might have heard about our arguments. They were ugly. He might have been told how I held his son’s hands in mine . . . and let him go.”
Elias spoke into the quiet. “The story said one of your arms was broken, but you still saved six men.”
“Not the one who mattered,” Lord Antoni said. “Silva was devastated when we returned. He left Cortes and would not see anyone. I didn’t know he’d gone to the king. Andrés never said. I never realized, until now, how much he hated me.”
Mari had directed Elias to a cottage at the far end of the beach. It was larger than its neighbors, easily three times in length, and when he poked his head in the doorway, he saw that it was a hospital.
One cloaked in sickness and incense. Pallets lined the floor with lanterns glowing gold between them. Brother Francis was among the monks tending to patients. He knelt beside an old man, and something painful lodged in Elias’s belly as he watched Ulises’s elder brother dip a cloth into a bowl and wring it out before cleaning the leper’s feet. When he was done, both feet were wrapped in binding cloth. Brother Francis rested a comforting hand on the patient’s shoulder and moved on to the next person, a woman this time. He caught sight of Elias in the doorway. His expression gave nothing away, and he turned back to the woman.
Elias went to sit on the beach. The sun rode low on the horizon. Soon torchlight would appear across the way. The light had nearly gone by the time Brother Francis settled beside him. They looked out upon the water and the gently lapping waves.
Elias greeted him quietly. “Brother Francis.”
“Lord Elias.”
Elias rested his elbows on his knees. “He’s not like I imagined.”
“No?” Brother Francis tossed a stone into the water. “The same could be said for you.”
A slight edge beneath the mildness. Their last encounter had not been a pleasant one. Elias said, “I won’t apologize.”
A small reluctant smile from the monk. “That makes two of us. Neither will I.”
“That’s not very monk-like,” Elias observed.
“As you say.”
There they were, the torches at Alfonse. “I have two sisters,” Elias said. “Nieve is twelve. She’s most like our father . . . Isidore. She has a head for numbers. And Lea is six. She’s interested in many things. It changes, really, with the tide. My brother, Jonas, is a baby.” He found his own stone and tossed it into the shallows. “I don’t see them very much anymore, but we are a happy family, Brother Francis. I grew up in a happy family.”
Brother Francis was watching him, and frowning. “Do you think I would begrudge it of you? I’m glad of it. I am.”
Elias believed him. “I wish it were different. But you’ve said it yourself. I could not have one family without the other.” He breathed in the night air and said what he’d come here to say. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, and to Prince Bartolome. But part of me, the selfish part, is very glad you were here for my father. I’m grateful there was someone here, to love him.”
For the next two days, Elias limped to the keep after manning his fire. Brother Francis joined them sometimes, never staying for very long. They spoke of pleasant matters. Elias’s voyages, mostly. When he broached weightier topics, like his mother, Lord Antoni would close in on himself. Much like Brother Francis did when he tried to speak of Ulises.
“May I ask you something?” Elias said to Lord Antoni. He never found himself idle at the keep. Today, he’d been tasked with assembling the hog bristles for the paintbrushes. First, he gathered together bundles of freshly plucked bristles. Some bundles were slimmer than his smallest fingernail, others twice as fat as his thumb. Some were tapered; others, even—brush heads for a painter’s every whim or need. He tied each off with waxed thread.
Lord Antoni sat across from him, binding the finished bundles onto wooden handles. He glanced up at Elias’s question. “Ask,” he said.
“I found the cicada on your map. In place of Mari’s house. Is she the reason you painted it?”
“Yes.” Lord Antoni looked genuinely puzzled. “What other reason would I have?”
Elias told him of Mari’s father, Judge Piri, and his role in questioning the prisoner, Felip of Mondrago. Lord Antoni, somewhat paler than he’d been a few minutes earlier, shook his head. “I knew nothing of that. Please don’t mention it to Mari.”
“I won’t.” Elias fell silent, thinking of a hundred other things he wished to know when Lord Antoni said again, “Ask.”
“Did you really rescue a village girl from a crocodile?”
A startled silence, followed by a question threaded with amusement. “Is it so hard to believe?”
Elias snipped a length of waxed thread with his shears. “I was told you had a particular fear of crocodiles. . . .” The slight narrowing of Lord Antoni’s eyes said he knew exactly who had shared that bit of information. “Forget I asked.”
“Are you afraid of crocodiles?” Lord Antoni asked.
Elias shrugged. “Of course.”
“Of course,” Lord Antoni repeated dryly. “Who isn’t? I did save her. If I had stopped to think about it, I might have run in the other direction. But there was no time.” He cinched a brush head to its handle with more force than necessary. “Silva was there that day. He saw me do it.”
Lord Silva had lied to him. A petty, unnecessary lie. “Why would he take me on as apprentice? He must have hated the sight of me.”
“It would have looked strange if he had not, perhaps,” Lord Antoni said. “But he could have moved you off to another navigator after a year or so. No one would have thought it odd. I imagine he kept you on because he saw your potential.” When Elias was quiet, he added, “Whatever he has done, it does not change the fact that he was an excellent teacher. To both of us.”
“You’re kinder than he deserves.”
“Oh, I know it,” was the grim response.
Elias no longer wished to speak of Lord Silva. “How did you know Lady Esma was in Javelin?”
“Esma.” Lord Antoni closed his eyes briefly. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “We hear things when the supply ships come in. And from the new arrivals. I only knew she never returned to Cortes. And she wasn’t here. The last time I saw her, she was a stone’s throw from Javelin.” He raised his eyes to Elias’s. “I never thought someone would see the riddle and actually solve it.”
“You must have had some hope.”
“Very little.”
Elias snipped another length of thread. “I will get you off the island. Not immediately. We’ll be recognized on a royal vessel, especially standing together. But I’ll come back on my own. I don’t want you to think I’d leave you here.”
Lord Antoni only looked at him, unsmiling. “To what end?”
“What do you mean?”
“Elias, I won’t return to del Mar.”
“You don’t have to.” Elias’s hand swept the chamber, toward the maps. “You could make a new life, anywhere else. I can help you.”
Lord Antoni did not look at his maps. Only at his son, with a look on his face that said he would not be swayed. “I’m an old man.”
“Not that old.”
“Come, let us speak of—”
“I don’t wish to speak of small things!” Elias snapped, getting to his feet. “Why the riddle, if you didn’t want to be found?”
“I did it for Teodor . . . for Francis.”
“The riddle was for Brother Francis.” Elias still held the shears. He tossed them onto the table. “This secret lif
e you live, this is for me, and Maman. What about you?”
Nothing.
Elias said, “You’re spoken of still, by everyone. I met the ambassador of Oslaw, who remembers you well. They talk of your adventures and your bravery. . . . What do you imagine they’d say if they could see you now? Would they recognize you?”
Lord Antoni flinched. He lowered his head.
And Elias felt ill. Frustration had loosened his tongue, had made him cruel and thoughtless. When would he learn to think before he spoke? “Forgive me.”
Lord Antoni addressed the table. “I’m no longer that man,” he said, his tone fierce. “I can’t turn back the sand glass and be that man. No matter how I wish it.”
“Forgive me, please. I wish it unsaid.”
Lord Antoni laid a hand over the finished brushes. “We’ve done quite a bit today. Perhaps tomorrow.”
A dismissal. Silently, Elias gathered his walking stick. When he left, he carried his shame with him, black and ugly, perched like a crow on one shoulder.
He returned to the beach in a filthy temper. Flinging plants into the fire, far more than were necessary. They were useless, anyway. So were those cursed soldiers in Alfonse. He fumed, pacing on the sand with blue fire blazing directly behind him. His leg hurt. He cursed it, too. He could not stay here any longer. Mercedes . . . He beat at the sand with his stick, then raised his hand high in a rude gesture aimed at the soldiers. Giggles emerged behind him. Mari’s children peeked at him from behind the trees. Brother Francis also approached. He sent the children scattering with one look.
Elias said, “I need a boat.”
Brother Francis stopped a safe distance from Elias’s stick. “No.”
“I’ll take the risk, monk. It’s not your decision.”
“It’s not a risk. It’s a certainty. They’ll fire on you.”
Elias snapped, “Better to be fired on than to rot here! How do you stand this life?”
Remorse filled him when he saw Brother Francis’s expression. Elias dropped to the sand, holding his head in his hands. “Forgive me. I’m offending everyone today, Brother. I’m a horse’s ass.”
“As you say.”
Elias laughed and did not raise his head. A minute later, the monk’s sandaled feet appeared in his periphery. “I know your frustrations,” Brother Francis said quietly. “And I’ll miss our conversations, Lord Elias, when you’ve gone.”
“What?” The sudden switch in tone brought his head up. “Then you’ll give me a boat?”
“I don’t need to.” Brother Francis looked beyond him.
Elias turned and, a second later, stumbled to his feet, ignoring the pull in his leg, aware only of a sharp, painful sensation in his chest. A caravel had sailed into view, the royal flag of del Mar raised high. The ship did not come from the direction of Alfonse, but from deeper waters. It headed directly for the boundary rock. He could see a figure at the helm, the wind blowing her hair behind her, and knew without a doubt that it was Mercedes.
Twenty-Six
LIAS WAS ALREADY hobbling for the boats. Brother Francis called to someone, and another monk in his middle years appeared by Elias’s side.
“My name is Brother Lorenz. I will row for you, Lord Elias.” He dragged a small rowboat into the water.
Elias thanked him. When he looked back, Brother Francis was gone.
The boat pulled up alongside the ship. Peering over the side at Elias, with identical expressions of wariness, were Mercedes, Ulises, Commander Aimon, and the captain and crew of the Desdemona. And no wonder. Elias knew what he looked like. Nearly a month’s beard growth, dressed in a brown robe, he was twin to the silent monk by his side. Also, he had just come from a leper colony.
“Elias!” Mercedes said.
“Elias?” Ulises called down, doubtful.
“What took you so long?” Elias yelled back, and Ulises grinned.
Commander Aimon did not look as happy to see him. “Are you sick, boy?” he shouted down.
“No, Commander.”
“Then what, in the name of Saint Matthew’s mother, are you—” The commander would have said more but was distracted by Mercedes swinging over the side of the ship. She clambered down the ladder, ignoring his shouting and threats.
Elias watched her. Her dress was the color of spring leaves. Her underskirts, which he could see clearly from where he stood, layer upon layer of black lace. He nudged Brother Lorenz with his elbow without saying a word. The monk, who had been gazing upward with his mouth hanging open, whipped his head around, his face having turned an alarming shade of purple.
Elias nearly fell back into the water when she threw her arms around him. The boat rocked precariously. He buried his face in her hair. “Mercedes.” He said her name over and over again, and it was some time before he heard the hoots from above and saw the scandalized expression on Brother Lorenz’s face.
“You’re hurt,” she said between kisses. “Your leg—”
“Is better than it was. Truly, love. Don’t—”
She smacked him in the chest. “I’ve looked everywhere for you! Everywhere! I thought you were dead! And then a messenger arrives, and he’s going on and on about blue fire. Elias, what are you doing here?”
“Oy!” Commander Aimon yelled. “That can wait. Get up here, both of you!”
Elias took her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. He glanced at Brother Lorenz, then at Mercedes, and shook his head once. She frowned, understanding the need for silence, though not the reason behind it.
All ears were cocked Elias’s way, waiting for a response. He looked behind him toward Valdemossa, where he knew Brother Francis watched from some hidden vantage point, waiting to see what he would do.
You trust him with your life, the monk had said. Do you also trust him with mine?
Far easier to keep what he’d learned to himself. He could spare Ulises the burden of knowing how Bartolome died. He could honor Brother Francis’s request for peace and anonymity.
Except it was Ulises who had asked him to solve the riddle. And Elias had made a promise to his king.
“My king,” Elias said, “you must come with me.”
Commander Aimon looked incredulous. “You have lost—” He fell silent when Ulises placed a hand on his shoulder.
Ulises knew. He was no longer smiling, his face having paled to moonstone. He looked at Valdemossa for a long moment before he swung over the side of the ship, climbed down the ladder, and jumped into the monk’s boat.
The boat ride was a silent one. The monk beside them barred any meaningful conversation. Commander Aimon had joined them, dropping into the smaller boat with a face full of thunder. Elias focused on the western end of the island, where he saw a figure standing alone upon a rocky ledge. Ulises saw him, too. He stiffened, his eyes filled with curiosity and dread.
“My thanks to you, Brother,” Ulises said when they reached the shore, and the monk bowed. Elias scooped his walking stick from the sand. They kept to the water’s edge as he led them to Brother Francis. The island’s residents looked on in silence.
“Don’t take offense,” Elias said quietly. “A bow would be painful for many of them.”
“I understand.” Ulises raised a hand in greeting. Mercedes did the same. They were met with bows from those who were able and, from the children, wide eyes and whispers.
“So many,” Ulises said. “Some so young. I did not realize.”
Commander Aimon crossed himself.
When they had passed the last cottage, Ulises stopped. “Elias. Tell me.”
A short time later, Ulises learned the full measure of Lord Silva’s treachery. As long as Elias lived, he would never forget the look on his king’s face.
They stayed back as Ulises joined his brother. Elias resting on the sand, Mercedes beside him. The commander standing a short distance away beneath a palm. The brothers faced each other; words were spoken. At one point, it looked as though they argued. Elias caught his breath when Brother Francis, o
nce a prince named Teodor, knelt before Ulises and bowed his head. Brother Francis didn’t see what Ulises did next, but Elias did. His friend took a step back, nearly stumbling. His hand hovered in the air above the monk’s head before it finally settled on his skull, a formal acceptance of loyalty.
Mercedes turned her face into Elias’s shoulder. “Elias, I’m so sorry. There’s more. Madame Vega was our Eve.”
“Was?”
After Lord Silva, he had thought nothing else could hurt him. He was wrong. She had always been Madame to him. Never Lena, never Eve. Kind in that stern way of hers. And so you are Elias, she had once said to a boy dazzled by the Tower of Winds. You are most welcome here.
He recalled small details, insignificant at the time. On the day Lady Esma’s body had been discovered in the courtyard, Madame was nowhere to be found. Not in her work chamber, not at supper. Luca had seen her ride off in the small hours of dawn.
At the harbor, Madame had watched Elias give his map carrier to Reyna. Not long after, a brutal stranger had turned up, intent on stealing it. Even if it had meant harming an innocent girl.
I’ve seen him before, Reyna had said. She would have remembered her attacker eventually, recognized him as a farmer on her grandfather’s property. Madame had known this. Lord Silva had known this.
Elias could barely speak past his fury. “Where is he?”
The commander answered. His response was brief and ominous. “Esperanca. I’ve sent someone for him.”
Mercedes asked, “Do you wish to see him?”
“I want to kill him,” Elias said.
Commander Aimon said, “You’re not the only one.”
When Elias and Mercedes arrived at Lord Antoni’s keep, they found it empty.
“Oh.” Mercedes stood riveted before the painting of Elias and his mother. She surveyed the rest of the chamber slowly. “That poor, poor man.”
Elias searched the keep, calling out. He found a bedchamber and a small kitchen, both empty. He checked out back, nothing. On a hunch, he looked behind the large painting. There it was, a door. They followed the steps downward. Small rectangles had been cut into the stone walls, letting in enough sunlight to guide their way.
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