Duarte sighed. “Perhaps we should start again. I have made some arrangements that I hope will relieve some of your anxiety. Paula, the crew have agreed to give you access to our ablution area three times daily. They will not disturb you while you make use of it. Stoyan here can stand guard if you’re worried; it’s not exactly private. You won’t be used to life aboard a ship. We don’t wash much and we don’t cook. There’s dried meat, olives, hard bread. You’ll be pleased to hear we took on fresh water in Istanbul.” He glanced at Stoyan. “Once that arm’s back to normal, you can make yourself useful. A man of your strength will be an asset to the crew.”
“I guard Paula.”
“Paula doesn’t need a guard all day and all night. I run a tight ship. She’ll be quite safe.”
“So I don’t have to stay in here?” I ventured, not meeting Stoyan’s eye. I was struck by the fact that both of them were calling me Paula, even when speaking to each other. I suspected it was the first of many changes to come.
“I’ll tell you when you can come on deck and where you can sit to keep out of folk’s way,” Duarte said. “You’ll need a cloak; Pero will find you one. Remember that we’re in a hurry. Don’t expect fascinating conversation and nonstop entertainment.”
I gave him a scathing look. “We’ll amuse ourselves,” I said. “Provided we can have access to your books. And some writing materials, if you have them.”
“You plan to pen missives home complaining that you are captive on a pirate ship? Place them in a corked jar, perhaps, and throw them overboard with a hopeful prayer?”
I did not dignify this suggestion with an answer.
“Do we sail through the night?” Stoyan asked.
Duarte shook his head. “We’ll drop anchor in a bay somewhere tonight and be off again at first light. Night sailing is too risky, and I imagine the pursuers will adopt the same caution. In the Black Sea, I plan to lose them. At the end of the voyage, I must take Cybele’s Gift overland. If I can, I want to make that landfall unobserved. A chase across a mountain pass is not a prospect I relish.”
Stoyan and I both looked at him. Duarte seemed to be waiting for us to speak.
“All right,” I said, laying the poetry book down on the bed. “Tell us exactly what it is you’re doing. Where are you taking Cybele and why? And while you’re about it, tell me who those men were who attacked Stoyan on the docks. Not yours, I presume, since your crew rescued him.”
Duarte sat down on the bunk beside me. I edged away, knowing there was no chance of following normal rules of propriety in such a place but wary all the same. Stoyan remained standing, his eyes narrow.
“I find that I am not quite prepared to trust you,” Duarte said, glancing at me and away. For the first time, his tone sounded less than fully confident, and that surprised me. “Much rides on this. A personal stake that cannot be measured in gold or silver. I became aware some time ago that, alongside the merchants who were bidding for Cybele’s Gift, another party wished to track down the artifact for his own reasons. The interest of the religious authorities in Istanbul was at first a tightly guarded secret but became common knowledge as the raids began.”
“Go on,” I said.
“You will know that I speak of the Sheikh-ul-Islam,” Duarte said gravely. “He is a ruthless man, and he has a long reach. In hindsight, I suspect his hand in the murder of your father’s Turkish colleague. Salem bin Afazi was a devout Muslim. He made the error of putting personal friendship before the strict observance of his faith when he gave Master Teodor advance notice of this artifact’s arrival in the city. That alone, I believe, would have been enough to attract the Mufti’s attention. The religious authorities being what they are, it may have been interpreted as a personal interest in pagan idolatry. I cannot say how the Sheikh-ul-Islam came by the information, but the punishment was quick and deadly.”
This was shocking and, I was forced to admit, entirely believable. It was the same idea Stoyan had hinted at when we first discussed Cybele’s Gift. And if Duarte was telling the truth about this, perhaps he had also been honest when he’d said the attack on my father was not his doing. If that was the case, I had behaved appallingly toward him.
“Is there other evidence to back up your theory?” asked Stoyan.
“Indeed. Men have been tailing the bidders around Istanbul.” Duarte gave Stoyan an appraising glance. “Until you came rushing on board to accuse me of attacking Master Teodor, Paula, I believed your father was the one bidder, apart from myself, who had managed to move about the city untracked. Pero and I discussed this and put it down to his cool head, his experience, and the presence of Stoyan. I was taken aback to hear that Master Teodor had been assaulted this morning. The timing was odd, since it was clear the Mufti’s attention was on me today—he has finally learned of my interest in Cybele’s Gift. Pero recognized several of those who set upon Stoyan. Our friend here happened to be in the wrong place at a crucial time. The Mufti’s men were trying to board the Esperança and carry out a search before we sailed. Stoyan got in their way. In the ensuing confusion, he was lucky to escape with his life. Pero holds the theory that once a brawl commences in such a public spot, passersby have a tendency to join in for no better reason than entertainment. Hence we had folk pushing in all directions, when a little cooperation might have enabled the Mufti’s party to board quite easily. You did us a favor, Stoyan.”
“Which your crew returned,” Stoyan said. “I did not know who had dispatched that mob to the dock. I did know that if there was any chance Paula had reached your ship, I did not want them on board.”
“A search?” I was puzzled by Duarte’s theory. “But wouldn’t the Mufti send uniformed Janissaries? Or officials? That just looked like a band of thugs.”
Duarte smiled thinly. “Officials carry out inspections, interviews, visits. In this case, I suspect what was intended was brazen theft, backed up by violence as required. In broad daylight, on a crowded dock, with a crew such as mine to confront, it could not be done covertly. Hence the thugs: unidentifiable by passersby, with nothing to connect them with the Sheikh-ul-Islam. But we know who sent them. Pero is extremely well informed about who hires whom at a certain level of activity.”
“How can you call it theft,” I challenged, “when the artifact is stolen already?”
Duarte sighed in exasperation. “Paula, my silver is as good as your father’s. I paid a fair price; Barsam was happy. Cybele’s Gift is legitimately mine. For a short time.”
“For a short time,” I said flatly. “Until when, exactly? Where is it we’re going?” I remembered the trip from Constana and the few moments when the prospect of being boarded and attacked had seemed all too real.
Duarte hesitated.
“Senhor,” Stoyan said, frowning, “you have made it clear you do not intend to set us ashore along the way. That means Paula and I must accompany you to this destination. There seems to me no reason to withhold its name from us.”
“Paula is a merchant’s daughter,” Duarte said. “She came on board my ship clad in a disguise. Maybe she’s on the Esperança for the reason she gave me, incoherent as it was. Maybe it’s pique at being outbid combined with concern for her father’s predicament. Maybe it’s more. Until I know that, I don’t plan to confide any secrets. Not in the lady, and not in you, since it is blindingly clear to me that you would jump through fire for her.”
A muscle twitched at Stoyan’s temple. I heard him draw a deliberate breath, as if to stop himself from answering in anger.
“So you don’t trust me, Senhor Duarte,” I said quickly. “The feeling is mutual. I’ll make this easier for you. I noticed a certain lack of surprise on your face when you saw the artifact for the first time. You remained cool and calm when I announced that half of it was missing. Answer me one question: Did you already know it was broken? Do you know where the other half is?”
“That’s two questions.” Duarte was smiling. He had the ability to look entirely charming even when he was in
his most adversarial mood. “If I answer yes and yes, will you believe me?”
So Irene had guessed right about him. “How did you find out? Documentation about Cybele’s Gift is as scarce as hen’s teeth.” There were, of course, the papers I had found, but I suspected an uncanny hand had set those before me.
“You are not the only scholar in the world, Paula,” Duarte said smoothly. I could tell he was holding something back.
“You said something about returning the artifact to its original owners. Who are they? Have they paid you to acquire it for them?”
Duarte laughed, though I could not see anything funny about it. “They are hardly in a position to do so. Let us simply say that I owe a debt and that I am repaying that debt. I’m on a mission. I don’t plan to give you the details; at least, not yet. You’ll have to earn my trust first.”
A mission. Mine, Stoyan’s, Tati’s. The forest queen had said nothing about Duarte. All the same, it rang true for me. I remembered that Tati had helped me reach the ship. In fact, Tati had been on the ship the first time I had seen her black-robed form.
Duarte addressed Stoyan rather pointedly. “Why don’t you go up and stretch your legs awhile? It’s cramped here, especially for a man of your build. You could find your mistress something to eat. Ask for Cristiano. He’s in charge of rations.”
Stoyan looked at me. Beneath the bandage, his face was paler than usual.
“I will stay with Paula until you return,” Duarte added. “I have no intention of harming her in any way, though I must confess to a strong urge to shake some of her prejudices out of her. No, no, don’t look like that. I won’t touch her, I swear. With you to answer to, not one of the Esperança’s crew would dare look at her in the wrong way, and that includes the captain.”
“Go on, Stoyan,” I said. “We’re going to have to sample this dried meat sometime. Don’t ask them what kind it is. I’d rather not know.”
I could see Stoyan thinking, weighing up the relative dangers of leaving me alone here with Duarte and taking me up on deck, where I would be visible to the Esperança’s crew. He left, looking anything but willing.
“Well, now,” Duarte said, sitting down again by the small table that held his charts, “are we going to continue fighting, or shall we attempt some kind of truce?”
“You still have questions to answer—” I began, but Duarte waved a hand, hushing me.
“Not now. We will only argue, and I am weary of that. Once we drop anchor for the night, we must quench all lights on board, the better to remain invisible to certain eyes. Until then, perhaps you and I might engage in some other activity, one that will not have us at each other’s throats.”
A prickle of unease crept across my flesh. “What activity?” I asked, trying for the sort of tone Irene might have employed in a similar situation.
“I could teach you a game,” he suggested with an expression that could only be described as wicked, all dimples and snapping dark eyes.
Out of my depth already, I struggled not to make my misgivings too obvious. “I’m not sure I’d care for your sort of games, senhor.”
“Call me Duarte; you did before. Forget the teaching, then. Tell me what games you already know, and we will try one of those.”
“Chess?” I had already observed a board and pieces amongst his things when I went through them in the hunt for clothing.
Duarte grinned. It was the fierce, combative smile he had used in the çari. “Done,” he said, crouching to retrieve the set from the small chest where it was stored. “I warn you, I’m good. I’ve been playing since you were a babe in swaddling.”
“Then I imagine you will defeat me before Stoyan returns with our supper,” I said demurely. “How convenient. I’m sorry I won’t be able to offer you a challenging bout.”
“Ah, well, perhaps that is best. Otherwise we may fight again.”
“Oh, I don’t fight when I play,” I said. “Getting the emotions involved is not at all appropriate. A cool head is the thing.”
I saw the flash of his teeth. “Then I will certainly beat you, Paula. You’re incapable of keeping your temper for more than the space of a few breaths.”
I refused to be baited. “Black or white?” I asked him calmly.
“For a villain such as Duarte da Costa Aguiar, it must be black, of course. For an innocent maiden held captive on a pirate ship, pure white.”
We were just getting into the game when Stoyan returned, bearing a platter of food. I was playing carefully, wanting to show enough skill to keep Duarte interested but avoiding any displays of expertise. I planned to trap him at a far later stage and thereby secure a victory. He was good, certainly: an experienced player, as he had said. But he was far beneath the folk who had shared the scholars’ table with me in the Other Kingdom. They had taught me a rare assortment of strategies and tricks; they had trained me to see far ahead and to read my opponent’s subtlest gesture, his faintest sigh.
“You play well,” Duarte said grudgingly. “We should pause awhile and eat. Is there sufficient here for three?”
Stoyan set the platter down without comment. I exercised my teeth on the chewy strips of meat and managed a few bites of hard-baked bread. The olives were the only thing worth eating. I finished my share in unseemly haste, for it had been a long time since Irene’s sweetmeats. What would Irene think of my current predicament? She’d be shocked, certainly. She’d also tell me I had only myself to blame for disregarding her warnings about the charming Senhor Aguiar.
Duarte ate steadily, no doubt long accustomed to sailors’ fare.
“You’re not eating, Stoyan,” I said, noticing how pale he still was. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I am sure, kyria. This man Cristiano tells me we will soon be at our anchorage for the night. You will wish privacy to prepare for sleep.”
“Not quite yet,” Duarte said. “I need to win the game first.”
“I don’t suppose that will take you long,” I said with a sweet smile that brought a suspicious frown to his face. “Stoyan, you may as well go to the cabin next door and lie down. Chess is boring to watch if you don’t know how to play.”
Stoyan’s features tightened. “I will stay,” he said, and settled on the floor again. The size of the cabin meant he could not quite stretch out his legs. He looked uncomfortable in more ways than one, but I decided not to press the point.
As the game advanced, I became more and more absorbed. So, it seemed, did my opponent. Knights, rooks, bishops, and pawns fell and were removed from the board. Strategies were put into play and countered. Once or twice I was aware of Stoyan asking if we were nearly finished and Duarte murmuring something in return. At a point when I was beginning to set up my endgame, Stoyan observed that the ship had stopped moving and that we should surely be quenching the lantern, since he had been told all lights on board were to be extinguished once we reached our mooring. “Not yet,” I muttered, moving a critical piece into play. A little later, Pero came to the door, said something in Portuguese, and at a murmur from Duarte left us.
And somewhat after that, I won the game. It was only then, looking up with a triumphant grin and surprising an unguarded smile of pure delight on Duarte’s aquiline features, that I realized how quiet it was. Stoyan had his head tipped back against the wall; he was half asleep. The Esperança was at anchor, and beyond our door, all I could hear was the gentle creak of the timbers and the faint wash of the sea. The last time I had been so caught up in the thrill of a true intellectual challenge had been six whole years ago—the night I made my final farewell to the Other Kingdom.
With each day that passed on board the Esperança, I felt guiltier. Looking back, I could hardly believe I had acted so rashly. Father would be distraught. I imagined him using up all our profits in mounting a fruitless search for me. I thought of him sinking into a decline. At the same time, I found myself glancing into odd corners of the ship, wondering when Tati was going to make another appearance and give me some
clear instructions as to what exactly I was supposed to be doing. For, despite my guilt and anxiety, I felt in my bones the certainty that Stoyan and I were exactly where the powers of the Other Kingdom wanted us to be. We had begun our quest.
Duarte relaxed his rules. I was allowed up on deck, except at times when the crewmen were under particular pressure and needed to be without distractions. He showed me where I could sit or stand and not be in the way. I obeyed his instructions, understanding that on a ship the captain’s word is law and it is foolhardy to disregard it. I knew next to nothing about sailing. I tried to learn by observation how things worked: the sails in particular, with their complex arrangement of ropes and the different deployment of them in varying conditions.
Many of the crewmen spoke some Greek, Turkish, or French, and they put these together to answer my questions or invite me to learn a certain knot or help haul on a particular rope. They were indulging me in the latter. My strength was puny by comparison with that of the slightest of them, but they congratulated me heartily and, after a day or two, took to singing a certain ditty as they worked:
Paula, de brancura singela
Faz corar uma rosa
Gaivota graciosa, do navio
Marinheira mais bela!
I heard Stoyan and Duarte arguing about it later. Duarte was assuring my guard that there was nothing at all ribald in it and that it was the kind of song a man might make up about his little sister. He would never, Duarte declared, allow crude comments about a lady like Mistress Paula on board the Esperança. The crew knew he would have their guts for garters if they tried anything of the sort.
I could not help noticing that Duarte was regularly seeking me out. That surprised me. It seemed we had managed to outrun the pursuing vessel as our captain had intended, for she had not been sighted. But we were in a race of sorts, with Duarte keen to reach landfall and move on before there was any chance of the Mufti’s crew spotting where he was headed.