Swords From the West (42 page)

He caught up his cloak, hat, and sword and bowed ceremoniously to the jester.

"Behold, the new master mariner of Messer Clavijo and his party. I go to the council, or, better, to Contarini, for my commission."

Hereupon Bembo scratched his head and cast a tentative glance at the water jar. He had been eager to inform his master that Rudolfo was in the expedition, hoping to turn Michael from thought of meddling with Contarini's plans, and now Michael had said he would join the party.

"Let me bathe your head, master, before you go."

Michael laughed.

"Water, upon such a night as this! Nay, we will drink to our commission and to the Grand Cham. Come, most wise oracle, a toast!"

"To the Grand Cham." Bembo filled a cup reluctantly.

"To the Grand Sham!" Michael emptied the cup.

It was late that night when he returned, but the jester was sitting up, wrapped in his tattered mantle, solemnly eyeing the diminishing candle on the table. He looked up fearfully when Michael pushed in the door, for Bembo had entertained grave apprehensions as to the reception of his slightly intoxicated master-for such he considered Michael-by the members of the council.

To his surprise Michael's step was regular and his glance steady.

"'Tis done, Bembo," he smiled. "Rudolfo being luckily absent, Contarini passed readily upon the merits of our claim. We sail the day after the morrow."

Michael flung himself into his chair and clapped Bembo on the knee.

"'Twas not wine that stirred my brain, Bembo. Knowing Clavijo, I had a grave fear that he would lead his expedition anywhere but to the terra incognita. Knowing Rudolfo, I am assured that the venture will verily seek spoil. And since our worthy friends would fain despoil the Cham, why, you and I must go with them. Because, forsooth, the Cham is of all men the man I most desire to clap eyes upon."

Taking some gold coins from a new pouch at his girdle, he bade Bembo settle their score at the Sign of the Sturgeon on the morrow. The pouch itself he detached and handed to Bembo, who was scratching his head, deeply puzzled by his master's speech.

"What is that, master?"

"For you. I drew an advance upon my pay. We part when the ship sails. This voyage is not for you, Bembo."

The jester pushed the money away and the corners of his lips drew down.

"Wherefore, master? Am I not your man?"

But Michael, glancing at the low partition that separated their room from the other chambers of the inn, shook his head thoughtfully.

"I have good reason for bidding you stay here. This voyage is not like other voyages."

Bembo pricked up his ears and protested, but Michael would say no more. Long after the sea captain had retired to his cloak and bed of boards, the jester remained awake, watching the candle flame moodily and glancing from time to time angrily at the purse.

He was hurt and his curiosity was stirred-two strong emotions with the hunchback. As the candle spluttered and subsided into grease, Bembo reached out a claw-like hand and pouched the money.

In the annals of the Maritime Council, in the pages devoted to the voyages into terra incognita, it is recorded that of Messer Clavijo and his company only one man returned to Venice.

Chapter VII

The Castle without Doors

Clavijo, in choosing the Nauplia, had selected the most comfortable means of travel to be had in those days. The pilgrim galliot was broad of beam and fitted with extra cabins in the stern castle. A dozen great sweeps aided the lateen sail. The sides of the vessel were high, and sloped well inboard-affording good protection against the waves.

The pilgrim galleys were designed to provide some ease for passengers. Live fowls were carried. The master of the ship could not remain at any given port for purposes of trade more than three days. He was also obliged to put in at any port they might fancy.

Clavijo, Mocenigo, and Rudolfo had all quartered themselves aft; Soranzi had made shift with sleeping-space below decks. But Bearn, who had discovered for himself the unattractiveness of quarters under the deck where the passengers camped all over each other, appropriated space for his mantle and bundle on the main deck under the overhang of the bow.

He was somewhat surprised to see that the ship's captain was hugging the shore, keeping a course well within sight of land. "Coasting" it was called in those days. Since this was the popular route, favored by the passengers, it was more liable to attack by Moslem pirates than the more direct course out into the Aegean.

Pirate galleys frequented the sea lanes to the East, off Greece, and Michael had observed at a glance that the Nauplia was poorly equipped for defense. Moreover he wondered that Clavijo was not afraid of encountering thieves. The Spaniard had been entrusted with a treasure of some fifteen thousand Venetian ducats and valuable goods.

It was the second night out and a full moon hung in a clear sky; the man at the steering oar guided the Nauplia within sight of the shadows of land.

Near Michael groups of Armenian and Muscovite traders slept, men and women together, heedless of the clamor of voyagers at dice and wine, or the quarreling and singing below decks, where torches of pine-pitch made sleep difficult, if not perilous.

Michael found that he missed Bembo's light tongue and deeper philosophy. The jester would have been in his element on such a night. But Bembo had left him without farewell the day before the galliot sailed.

The tumult and lights of the pilgrim ship formed a great contrast to the silence and speed of a smaller galley that swept out of an inlet with oars plying on either side and spray flashing in the moonlight.

For a second Michael studied it, then took up his sword and ran aft to where the captain slept by the helmsman.

"Look at yonder craft," observed the Breton, shaking the slumbering seaman, "and then dream if you can."

The Venetian stumbled to his feet, gazed, and swore roundly.

"Saint Anthony of Padua! I like it not."

He strode to the break of the stern castle.

"Ho, there! Cressets! Women into the stern! Out with your swords, messers. There be pirates at hand or I am a blind man! "

The gamesters sprang up. Men of the crew ran to fix torches in place at the ship's side; fagots contained in steel baskets were kindled at bow and stern. The women, wailing and crying, were driven below decks.

"Captain," suggested Michael, "it would be well to man the sweeps and get the galliot well under weigh. Your sloping sides are comfortably devised for boarders. Our safety lies in ramming the galley with our wooden beak, such as it is."

The Venetian, experienced in such matters, saw the wisdom of this and was giving orders for the rowers to push out the great oars, when a tall figure appeared on the balcony below the steering -platform and silenced him.

"Nay. No time for that. Summon up your oarsmen to fight on deck."

Michael, leaning down, saw that it was Rudolfo who spoke. The condottiere had drawn his sword and was giving swift instructions to his own men who tumbled up, pulling mail hoods about their heads and stringing their bows.

"You hear me, fool!" Rudolfo cried at the Venetian. "I am in command of the armed forces of this cursed galliot. By the rood-"

The captain shrugged, glanced at the oncoming galley-now not a dozen ships' lengths away-and complied. The crew hurried to the danger point at the ship's side, shepherded by Rudolfo, while the Nauplia barely moved through the water, for the wind was light.

Young Mocenigo reeled upon deck, more than a little the worse for wine. Michael saw Soranzi peer from a cabin and straightaway vanish.

The brazen sound of the ship's bell voiced a warning to all who still slept. From the dark huddle of Muscovites and Armenians emerged men with bows-oriental traders, well able to fight in a crisis. On the waist of the Nauplia tumult reigned.

Glancing up at the sail, the Venetian skipper whispered to Michael: "Let the gallants do as they please. By Saint Anthony, I'll keep our bow against the other craft."

Michael took his stand beside Rudolfo. The condottiere was a brilliant figure in the ruddy light of the torches, his silver-inlaid helmet glittering, his crimson mantle flung back from his mailed chest. He ceased his directions to his men long enough to look swiftly at the Breton and his teeth shone at his beard.

"By the rood, messer, you stand behind me? I see you love not the front line of battle."

Now Michael wore no armor under his jerkin and mere prudence had dictated that he shelter himself behind the high rail as long as possible to escape the first arrow flights of the pirates, until they should board.

"As you wish, signor."

He pulled himself up into one of the platforms fashioned for archers to stand on. Rudolfo moved slightly away and Michael smiled at the inbred suspicion that took the condottiere beyond his reach.

But the arrows from the galley rattled high against the mast and tore through the great square of the sail that bellied and flapped as the Venetian skipper came about to present his bow to the pirate craft.

Rudolfo's half-dozen archers plied their long bows with disciplined precision.

"Saint Mark and Rudolfo!" Their shout went over the water to the galley. Answering cries identified the attackers as Turks and Greeks.

"Dogs!" snarled young Mocenigo. "The Lion of Saint Mark! Ha-do you like his claws?"

He seized one of the cressets by its supports and cast it out upon the deck of the galley as that craft moved past-the maneuver of the Venetian skipper having kept the galley from striking the side of the pilgrim ship with its bow.

For a moment there was a pandemonium of shouts, cries of anger and pain, and the flicker of javelins and arrows. The archers of Rudolfo, bearing long leather shields in front of them on their left arms, escaped injury, but Michael saw a pilgrim or two fall writhing to the deck.

Then the galley was past its prey and turning slowly-one bank of oars plying.

"Pando!" called the Nauplia's skipper. "About!" He pushed the two steering sweeps over and the galliot swung slowly into the offshore tack on which it had been when the pirates were sighted.

Only one more attempt the galley made to close, and the motley defenders of the pilgrim ship were lining the other rail when something whizzed past Michael from behind and stuck into the wooden planking between him and Rudolfo.

The Breton glanced around and saw only the confusion of undisciplined men taking up new positions. Then he drew the knife from the rail.

"A pretty present," laughed the condottiere. "For you or me?"

The knife was a long, heavy blade, its bronze hilt richly inlaid with silver. Michael thrust it into his belt and observed that the galley was drawing off, followed by the taunting shouts of the Venetians.

"They have small stomach for a fight," he muttered.

"Thanks to God and our good friend Pietro Rudolfo." Clavijo's bull voice filled the ship. "Come, Master Bearn, I do not see that you were any too forward in the affray. Doubtless your skin is tender and you hang back lest it be pricked."

Now Michael had not seen Clavijo at all along the embattled rail of the galliot and he strongly suspected that the man had remained in his cabin until the pirates had drawn off. Then a stronger suspicion assailed him, and he touched the knife in his girdle.

"Aye," he assented seriously, "the skin is very tender-upon my back, and this poniard is both heavy and sharp. It was cast at me from behind."

He held it up by the point before the eyes of the Spaniard, who blinked and pulled at his long beard. Rudolfo took it, glanced it over, looked searchingly at Clavijo from under his thick brows, and tossed it over the side of the vessel.

"Some sailor's blade," he shrugged, "and doubtless meant for my kidneys. I am not over popular with the seamen of the Nauplia, because, verily, I enforce discipline upon occasion."

It was a long speech for the taciturn condottiere to make. Michael would have chosen to keep the dagger, in hopes of learning who its owner was. Yet, as Rudolfo said, it might well have been intended for him.

"Hark ye, Messer Clavijo." The Breton folded his arms. "Neither master of this vessel nor leader of your men-at-arms am I. The Maritime Council engaged me to aid you to navigate unknown waters if need be, and to arrange transport upon land. This will I do, so well as I may. Methinks the time may come when you will have need of my services."

He was looking at Clavijo, but Rudolfo spoke.

"As a slave, Master Bearn? It is said that you sleep alone in your cloak, so that no other may see the marks of a whip upon your shoulders."

So saying, he stepped back, laying hand lightly on the hilt of his sword. Michael Bearn drew a long breath, but his left hand-that Rudolfo, hav ing learned his lesson once, was watching-reached up to the clasp of his mantle instead of to his weapon.

The cloak fell to the deck, and Michael's muscular fingers ripped open the collar of his jerkin, drawing it down over his bare shoulder. Both Clavijo and Rudolfo saw the deep red welt of scars.

"Aye," nodded Michael, "there be the marks of a Turkish scourge."

At this Clavijo started and a curiously intent frown passed over his smooth brow. He eyed the Breton's square, hard face and wiry, gray-black hair as if seeing him for the first time.

"Moreover," went on Michael tranquilly, "signori, you will note that my right arm hangs useless. It was broken by those same servants of the sultan. Perhaps this is why I have no longer any love for fighting when there is no need-"

"But surely, Master Bearn," smiled Clavijo ironically, "there was need to repel these pirates, who would have made short matter of us otherwise."

Michael laughed. The attack by the small galley had had in it more bark than bite, and once it was clear to their enemies that the pilgrim ship was not to be surprised, the Turks and Greeks seemed to lose heart. Such an affair bore little resemblance to the grim struggles Michael Bearn had shared in, along the frontier of the Orient.

"You laugh, signor?" Rudolfo's voice was heavy with insult. "Perhaps you would relish another scourging?"