One With the Shadows (28 page)

The door swung wide. A figure was silhouetted against a blinding light. A man. Gian covered his eyes. It wasn’t anyone he knew. The figure was short, and … lumpy. He hissed in a breath and turned away.

“Sorry about the light.” The door swung shut with a thunk.

Kate! He squinted against the light that remained in the chamber. He couldn’t quite see. It didn’t look like Kate. The figure moved into the shadow and bent over him. It was Kate all right. She was dressed in rough peasant’s clothing, an apron, and stocking feet, her hair tucked up under a cap with a short brim and her face muddied.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

She had come back for him. He was touched. And angry. Nothing had changed. “You were going to get out of here, remember?”

“We’re both getting out of here.” She tumbled some clothes at his feet. He stared at them. Men’s clothes. Boots. Even smalls and a cravat. They smelled faintly of cinnamon. He looked a question at her. “Sergei. He was the only one whose coat might remotely fit your shoulders. Now could we have a little haste, please?” She raised her brows, exasperated.

He stood and threw off the cloak. Immediately, the discomfort of the buzzing burn along his skin ramped up. He pulled on the shirt first. “You stole these from the house while they were sleeping?” By Jupiter, the girl was brazen. She shrugged, and motioned him for haste.

Everywhere his skin was bare the light scraped at him. “Even with clothes I won’t make it far.” He didn’t mean to growl at her. “Leave now, Kate.”

“I brought a cart. It has a tarpaulin. Between the clothing and the tarpaulin I thought you might survive the sun.”

He paused to look up at her. She was frowning, anxious. He shrugged a grudging assent and she relaxed. “You acquired clothing for yourself, clothes for me, and a cart all in … in about ninety minutes?” Astounding.

“It will all come to naught unless you
hurry.
The cart will be missed soon.”

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, pulling on the breeches. She was tapping her foot. For heaven’s sake, she’d brought boot pulls. He slipped them into the tabs at the insides of a boot and pulled it on. She threw the cravat around his neck.

“Don’t bother to tie this now. We must be off.”

He straightened, as realization came crashing in on him. “I must do one thing first.”

She sighed. “You are so predictable.”

He drew himself up even taller and looked down at her. “I have my—”

“Yes, yes, your duty.” She fished in the pocket of the trousers that were loose around her waist and a little tight over her hips. She held up her reticule, the silver one with beading she always carried. It was full and lumpy. She pulled open its drawstrings and took out a little silver box. “There.” She snapped it open. Inside nestled the great emerald. “I have the ruby too. I knew you wouldn’t leave without them.”

“You stole them from under Elyta’s nose?”

Kate shrugged. “They were asleep. I’m very quiet.” She raised her brows again and pointed to the coat. “I got my reticule back too. The money and my tarot deck were still inside.”

He grabbed the coat and shrugged into it. Not hard, since it was a little big across the middle. Sergei had something of a paunch. He took the two boxes and put them into the coat pockets. He nodded, steeling himself for the coming ordeal in the sun. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” She threw the cloak over his head before she opened the door. The rays felt like a rasp against even the skin that was covered. He was damnably weak. Light blinded him where it bounced off the rock of the walk and up under his shroud. If only he had his spectacles of dark blue glass, he might be able to see. “Go,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll follow.”

“Nonsense.” She put her arms around his shoulders to guide him. He stumbled beside her, trying to breathe, nearly blind. They reached the shade of the cypress grove at the end of the house. He smelled horse, recognized the wheel of a cart. She pulled at ropes that tied down the tarpaulin. He crawled up under it and was surrounded by the smell of cheese and raw meat and sausages, fresh-baked bread and the yeasty smell of a cask of wine. He pushed everything aside and crouched next to the cask. The pain of the sun eased and he heaved a breath. He heard the hiss of hemp as she tied the tarp down.

Relief shot through him. Then a nasty thought intruded.

“Can you drive a cart?”

There was a pause. “I drove it here from the square, didn’t I?”

An image of the treacherous road down to the sea from Ravello rose in his mind.

Oh, excellent. Just excellent.

Seventeen

Kate took a breath and willed her heart to stop pounding. The vampires could not be a threat to them in daylight. With any luck the villagers would still be drowsing. She had the money from her reticule. She was only nervous because Gian was so helpless in the sun, and that meant everything was up to her. Was she up to it?

She took up the reins and clucked to the horse. No danger of this beast careering through the piazza and attracting attention. She willed herself to patience. The cart creaked as it turned. Gravel crunched under the wheels. Did the damned thing have to make so much noise? The horse plodded down the drive and out the open gates. The piazza was quiet. A man dozing on a bench looked up, frowning as they passed. Did he recognize the cart?

Just walk on. Clip-clop. The pace was like to drive her mad.

Out of the little town, now. The road turned steeply down in a hairpin curve. She urged the horse into a trot. The cart jolted along between the lemon grove terraces, empty now of workers.

“Be careful.” She jumped at Gian’s voice. “This road is treacherous.”

He was right about that. The narrow road wound at the edge of a deep ravine. The stream was lost in the green gorge below. She heard a commotion behind her over the rumble of the cart. She glanced back. A horse was coming around the last bend. And it was coming fast.

Bloody hell! She slapped the reins over her horse’s rump as hard as she could. The beast lurched into a canter. She jerked it up short to take the next curve, and the cartwheels slid toward the verge. The cart rocked, then righted itself and careened on. Kate’s cap fluttered over the edge and her hair fell down her back. She imagined the shattered cart and their broken bodies in the stream far below. Three riders galloped into the turn above her.

“Slow down, you fool, you’ll ruin my cart!” one shouted.

“Look, Giuseppe, it’s a girl.”

Kate slapped the reins over the horse again.

Another turn, barely negotiated. She glanced up. Her only comfort was that the horses chasing her were anything but speedy. They were probably farm horses, big and heavy-boned. Her pursuers hadn’t taken time to saddle them, if these horses had ever even known a saddle. The men were not handy riders either. She had a chance.

“Hah, horse, hah,” she yelled. Another turn, and another. They were only a hundred feet or so above the stream now. The road suddenly forgot how to be a tangled ball of brown string upon a green carpet. It sloped gently downward as the valley widened. The cart went faster, but so did the horses behind her. She could smell the sea now. The stream widened into an estuary.

What was that mewling sound?

A flock of sheep milled out from behind some cypress. She glanced behind. The horses, their riders bouncing uncomfortably on their backs, were only fifty feet behind her.

She set her lips. “Hah, horse, hah!” She slapped the reins. The cart bounded ahead. A grunt behind her told her Gian was still alive. The horse veered to the left, trying to miss the sheep. Baaing distress boiled up from the right. The horse was through. The cartwheel grazed the leader of the flock who wore the bell. A man with a crook swore at her.

And they were clear. Kate glanced behind. Sheep jostled the pursuing horses. There must be fifty of the wooly beasts. The horses’ alarmed whinnies alternated with snorts of dismay. Two began plunging and rearing. Their riders slid off and disappeared among the sheep. Kate couldn’t help but grin. A tidy piece of work, that. She turned onto the coast road, north toward Amalfi. “Are you all right back there?”

“You do
not
 … I repeat, you do
not
know how to drive a cart.” The words were muffled by the tarpaulin.

Well! “You’ll be glad to know we lost them at the sheep.”

“I’ll be glad when we get to the harbor, if I’ve any senses left at that point.”

What a curmudgeon. Didn’t he appreciate that she had driven a cart for the very first time in her life down the Valle del Dragone at breakneck speed and brought them home safely?

They were just clopping into the outskirts of Amalfi when she heard horses approaching behind her again. She turned, shocked. Were they so determined? She got the horse back into a reluctant canter, but he had spent his strength. Ahead the town marched up the hill to the right, the quays poked into the aquamarine water, and a small forest of masts nodded to each other on the swell. A wide flagstone piazza lay on either side of the road between the harbor and the town.

Was there refuge here? Perhaps not. The three horses caught up to her as the cart edged into the piazza.

“Thief! Help!” the butcher shouted to the men unloading provisions from small boats tied at the quay. “This woman stole my horse and cart.”

The horse stopped in the middle of a gathering crowd. Wild thoughts of how to explain her actions careened through Kate’s head. “We’re running from vampires” didn’t have a successful ring to it.

People gathered round the cart. Murmurs of “she’s dressed like a man,” and “look at that scar,” ran round the crowd.

“Ask for the harbormaster,” Gian suggested sotto voce from the back.

“What can he do?” she shot back, annoyed. He was no help. It was up to her. “Signori, I had to borrow the cart. But I always meant to pay for it.”

The loud guffaws were led by the butcher. “Get a magistrate. Gaol is the place for her.”

Kate felt for her reticule. “I’ll buy the cart and contents. You can have the horse.”

“And what would the likes of you pay with?” More loud laughter. “No coin I would take.”

She peeled off what she thought was the equivalent of thirty pounds sterling, three or four times what the whole was worth. “Good, because I have soft money. Will that do?”

Silence fell.

“Here, let me see that,” the butcher said, grabbing the money. “Probably counterfeit.”

“Looks real enough to me,” one of his compatriots observed, sidling closer.

“She still stole the cart and horse. Paying now don’t mean she shouldn’t go to gaol.”

“Well, then take it back, and I’ll keep my money,” Kate said calmly.

“If I got anything ye might want ta steal, gel, let me know,” a seaman said. This provoked laughter from the crowd. The butcher blustered.

A man in a blue uniform sauntered up to the edge of the crowd, looking naval and official. He examined the money. “It’s genuine. Make your choice,” he said to the butcher.

The butcher opened his mouth, closed it, and pocketed the money.

“The harbormaster,” Gian whispered. “Say you want passage on the
Reteif
.”

To where, for God’s sake? “Thank you, kind sir. Now if you two will unhitch this gentleman’s horse from my cart, I have business with the harbormaster.” She stepped down from the cart. Her legs would barely hold her, as though she had been long at sea. She was still in her stocking feet. Two men stepped up to help, and she peeled off another bill and gave it to the nearest. The crowd parted before her as she strode toward the harbormaster. He was a big man. She felt uncomfortably small.

Well, she was used to that. “I’d like to ship this … this cargo on the
Reteif
.”

The man’s face was weathered by years of wind and sun. He narrowed his eyes. “The
Reteif,
you say?”

“Yes.” Nothing for it but to brazen it out. “When could the boat be ready to sail?”

“
Reteif
’
s
a tender, signorina, a sloop. She’s been ready these four days.”

“Good. Have the cart pulled on to the quay. And I’ll tell you my plans.”

But of course she didn’t have any. She hoped Gian did. But she had to make it to darkness to get his help.

*   *   *

“Will you hurry?” she demanded, watching Gian climb out of the cart. They had pulled it behind a stack of barrels. The sun was about to set like a red ball into the Mediterranean. That meant Elyta and the others would be up. They’d find their prey gone and come looking. And the first place they’d look would be the harbor, since she’d told them Gian came to Amalfi for a ship.

She’d changed into fresh clothes she’d bought in town, boy’s clothes, in view of what most likely lay ahead. But at least her breeches were clean, her face was washed, and her boots fit. She’d bought a change of clothing for Gian too, if she’d sized the articles of clothing right.

Gian brushed himself off, looking disgusted. “I didn’t know you had money.”

“Your mother gave me a thousand in notes in addition to the draft that was in my reticule.”

“You
could
have bought the cart in Ravello and spared us almost breaking our necks.”

Ungrateful man! “Well, I didn’t think of that at the time. I had other things on my mind, like Elyta and her crew. And I
did
get us down the mountain and onto your precious boat—”

“A tender,
Reteif
is a tender.”

“Which is a kind of
boat
according to the harbormaster. And you
might
show a little appreciation.” She was working herself up now. “You
could
still be in the chapel with Elyta.”

He looked self-conscious. “Let’s get going. She will have discovered we’re gone.”

“
Now
you’re in a hurry.” Now that it was his idea.

He took her arm and helped her onto the narrow plank that teetered between the rocking little ship and the quay. A sailor who wore a horizontally striped shirt and long, braided hair let go a flapping sail. Four others on the deck let go their sails too and began tying down the bottoms. They moved as in a precisely figured dance. A small, wiry man barked orders, none of which made the least sense to her. Everyone was very busy. But when they saw her, all movement stopped. A sail flapped free where slack hands had let go the rope. After an uncomfortable silence, everyone started talking at once. What with their various nationalities and accents, she could hardly make them out. She didn’t need to. The tones were of protest, and the object of their distress was obvious. The captain tried to quell them with threats and a raised voice.