Freize obeyed him and felt Isolde shaking all over as she leaned back against him. He put one arm round her shoulders and across her chest, and one arm round her waist. He could feel the rapid pulse making her whole body vibrate as she panted with fear.
“You and you,” Radu Bey said, pointing his sheathed scimitar at two of the guards. “Hold her legs still. She must not move so much as a hair’s breadth.”
The rabbi looked at the three men holding Isolde. “You consent?” he asked. “You are sure you want to risk this? You want these men to hold you down while I unsheathe my sword?”
“I consent,” she said. Her voice was a breathless thread of sound.
“Even that I take my scimitar to you?” Radu Bey showed her the wicked curving blade, reached forward and plucked a hair from her head, dropped it and slashed through it. They all saw the hair sliced in two: the scimitar was as sharp as a barber’s blade.
“I consent,” she repeated, her voice hoarse.
The rabbi nodded at the guards and each one straddled one of her legs, gripping her knees with their calves, holding her twitching feet in their strong hands at the ankles, keeping her as still as they could. They ducked their heads and closed their eyes so they did not see the Ottoman with his vicious sword; no one could have seen him and not flinched.
“If I miss my aim and cut off her foot, any part of her foot, you kick away the log of wood and plunge the stump into the bucket of pitch at once,” Radu Bey commanded the men. “Don’t wait for a second. It must be done at once, or she will bleed to death and die of the shock.”
Grimly, they nodded. Isolde felt their grip on her ankles tighten like a vise.
Freize wrapped around her, his arms around her body, her head jammed against his neck, felt that time had stood still and that he was trapped in a terrible nightmare. His head was swirling as he tightened his grip. “Tell him no!” he whispered to Isolde. “For God’s sake, tell him no.”
He felt her head tremble in denial and then he looked up as Radu Bey held the scimitar high over his head.
Freize thought he would cry out, forbid the Ottoman to take the risk. But the man moved too fast, without warning. All at once there was a sudden whistle of noise, like someone slashing through silk, and in a blur of movement the dark-robed man whirled on the spot, his blade high as if cutting down an opponent, and brought it down once, spun around again in a full circle like a dervish, and slashed down again like a cracking whip, moving too fast to see. Isolde screamed aloud and Freize felt her go limp in his arms as she fainted. He gripped her tightly, but could not bring himself to look down at her feet, expecting to see her legs horribly mutilated, her feet sliced off on the cobblestones, and the guards thrusting the bleeding stumps into boiling pitch.
But when he did look, the two men holding her feet were falling backward, their faces incredulous; her bloodstained feet were naked, the pleated soles limp on the cobbles, the uppers peeling away clean, as a cut ribbon. Isolde was coming round, blinking her eyes and looking down fearfully at her feet, freed from the red shoes at last.
Freize gave a hoarse sob of relief and buried his face in her icy neck; but Isolde made no sound. She reached down and felt the soles of her feet, fingering them all over, as if she could not believe that they were not skinned to the bone by the merciless blade. She held her toes as if she would count them, then looked up at Radu Bey. She was dazzled, she could not see him—he was a threatening silhouette against the brightness of the morning sun.
“Get me up,” she said to Freize. She never took her eyes from the Ottoman lord as she struggled up and stood gingerly barefoot. “I owe you a great debt; you have saved my life.”
Cleaning his sword on a piece of black silk, he glanced at her and nodded. “You’re unhurt?” he confirmed. “Not even grazed?”
“I did not believe it could be done,” she said breathlessly.
“Then you were brave indeed to hold still,” he said. “Quite surprising in a woman.”
Her white face flushed red. “I am the Lady of Lucretili,” she said with a sudden rush of pride. “I am not a frightened slave.”
He nodded. “I know of your father,” he said. “You are his daughter indeed. He was a brave man.”
“You knew he was a crusader?” she asked tentatively, wondering if perhaps his father had met the Lord of Lucretili in battle. “Were your people his enemy?”
“My father was a Christian. Your father and mine fought side by side,” Radu Bey said. “My father loved him like a brother. He told me that your father came on crusade thinking to destroy everything; but, like a few others, he had the eyes to see and the ears to hear, and he married an Arab princess, and took her back home to his castle in Italy to be his lady and her sons to be his heirs.”
Isolde’s hand on Freize’s arm tightened its grip. “No. That’s not true. He did no such thing. He already had a wife—my mother.”
The Ottoman lord slid his scimitar back into its jeweled sheath. “Yes,” he told her. “He converted to Islam, and he took an Islamic wife. Ask anyone. She was his second wife—she knew of the first; she was content with the arrangement, which is not unusual for us. It was agreed and done by our laws.”
Isolde choked for breath. “This is a lie! The Arab woman came to our castle as a guest; she had no son. Her only child was a girl—she is my friend and companion. You lie when you say the woman was my father’s wife. That is a lie. Take it back.”
“Lady Isolde, this lord just saved your life,” the rabbi interposed. “And he is our honored guest.”
She glared at him, her dark blue eyes burning. “It doesn’t buy him the right to lie about my father. My father was a crusader! He answered the call of the Holy Father! He went to recapture Jerusalem from the infidel. He would not have converted. He would never have imperiled his soul. He would never have brought an infidel wife home to our castle; he would never have put a half-Arab bastard into his chair.”
Freize heard her voice grate and knew that she was near to breaking down. But Radu Bey raised an eyebrow. “I see your gratitude does not last too long,” he remarked. “I see your pride has a dark side of contempt.”
“I just meant that my father would never have been unfaithful to my mother.” Her voice was shaking. “Our family honor is pure.”
“I am sure he rode out as a crusader and came home again looking quite unchanged,” he said. “And perhaps he did not tell you—who must have been a baby in your mother’s womb when he left—all that happened.”
“He was faithful to God. He was true to my mother,” Isolde insisted.
Radu Bey nodded. “As you wish,” he said indifferently. “Fidelity and truth are hard to measure, especially for us, the children of great men. And who knows what god any man serves?” He turned away from her to the rabbi, as if he understood that she was near to breaking down. “I must go,” he said. “I won’t endanger you by staying any longer.”
“I thank you for this.” The rabbi gestured to the shoes, limp and bloody in the dust. “We all thank you. I thank God that you were here. We owe you a debt that we will not forget.”
The lord nodded with a gleam of a smile, as his horse was brought down the narrow street, his groom and his servants mounted and riding behind it.
“You’re going?” Isolde exclaimed. “Now?”
He bowed to her and turned away. Without any apparent sign passing between the horse and rider, the horse bent one knee to the ground as Radu Bey took hold of the pommel of the beautifully embroidered black saddle and vaulted up onto the animal’s back in one smooth movement. The horse stepped up to its full height. Radu Bey bowed again to Isolde from his high saddle and looked past her to Freize. “Who was it that you came in with?” he demanded.
Freize jumped. “When we came into the village?”
“Don’t play the fool,” Radu Bey advised. “Whoever it was that spoke Hebrew. You two certainly don’t.”
“I don’t know,” Freize said honestly. “I don’t unders
tand it. He helped us get away from the dancers, and he called on the gateman to let us in. Then he disappeared.”
“And where did he come from?”
“Perhaps Venice?” Freize said cautiously. “But I can’t tell you what sort of thing he was. I didn’t bring him. I didn’t want him. Twice I told him to leave us. I think he just followed us.”
Radu Bey frowned as if thinking deeply. Then he nodded at the rabbi, his servants saluting the older man. “I think you may have a protector,” he told them. “I think these foolish Christians may have accidentally brought in your savior. Perhaps he will protect you. Until I return . . . until we return in force.”
“Radu Bey . . . ,” Isolde stammered.
He pulled his big black horse to a halt though it sidled on the tight rein. “My lady?” he replied.
Isolde limped on tender feet so that she stood at his big horse’s flank, looking up at him. “I thank you very much,” she said. “I know that I owe my life to you. It is a debt I will not forget. Forgive me—for what I said to you just now. I was very troubled by what you said about my father.”
His dark smile warmed his face. “Troubled?” He laughed. “Never in my life have I seen a woman in more trouble than you, with your bloodstained feet, wishing for your brother’s death,” he remarked. “Nor one better made to face trouble with courage.” He bent down to her. “Release that courage, and you will need no one’s help. If I were you, I would go home now and face your brother without any help. God knows you are woman enough to fight your own battles.”
“I cannot,” she said. “I have to get help against my brother.”
“And where are you going for help?”
“The Prince of Wallachia.”
He nodded slowly, as if she were telling him something of great significance. “Ah, the good Count Vlad. Do you know him at all?”
“No, he is the son of my godfather; our fathers exchanged swords as a sign of their friendship, so I have his father’s crusader sword as he has mine. He is bound to help me if I call on his aid.”
Radu Bey frowned. “I don’t admire your choice of ally,” he said shortly. “I would warn you against him. He and I have been enemies for a long time. He chose his path and I chose mine and I think that his way has led him into terrible darkness.”
“There is no one else that I can call on.” She hesitated as she looked up at him, as if she wished she might ask him for help once again.
He shrugged. “May your god guide you, as mine blesses me.”
She pressed a little closer and put her hand on his horse’s silky neck, looking up at him. “You bless me,” she said. “You saved my life today and I owe you a debt forever.”
“I hope that I never regret it,” he replied coolly.
She raised her face to him. “Do you regret it now?”
Reluctantly, as if he could not resist her, he bent down and pushed back her tumbled fair hair from her flushed cheek. “Not now, I don’t,” he said. “I am glad to see a woman like you stand on her own feet.”
She flushed at his touch, but she did not move away. “You must come to me, when I have won back my castle,” she whispered. “I will repay you for what you have done for me today.”
His face was grim. “Believe me, we will come,” he said. “All the way to Rome. But I doubt you will welcome me then.”
He gestured to the gateman to fling open the gates, holding his horse back on a hard rein till the opening was wide. Before the dancers outside realized what was happening, he had galloped through them, his servants close behind him, and was gone at a gallop, heading east. The gates slammed shut behind him and the gateman dropped the heavy bar.
Inside the village, they all stood frozen, listening until the thunder of the hooves on the track had faded away, and Radu Bey was gone.
Hidden at the edge of the woods as the sun slowly rose to midday height in the sky, Brother Peter saw horsemen suddenly burst through the gates and gallop away from the Jews’ village, but they were too distant, and gone too fast, for him to see the standard of the peacock feather against the black silk.
A little later he heard the sound of horses cantering again, but this time they were coming at speed from the south, and riding toward the Jewish village; and then he saw them as they burst from the wood at the top of the valley and scrambled down the road, hardly checking their speed, down the hill toward the little stone bridge where some of the dancers were sitting on the parapet, others on the bank kicking their feet in the cold water of the river, some of them leisurely finishing their meal, and waiting for their purse of silver.
The dancers at the gates heard the noise too, and the drummer rattled the tambourine to sound the alarm. In one fluid movement, the fiddler leaped to his feet and dashed away, around the tall perimeter wall of the village and out of sight.
Alarmed, the dancers struggled to their feet, but now the drummer was gone too, over the parapet of the bridge onto the riverbank below, running downstream. There was no one to tell them what to do. A couple of them pounded on the gates of the village, begging to be let in; two others, paddling in the river, simply left their tattered shoes on the bank and splashed away upstream, struggled to the river edge, and ran away, stumbling and clawing, up the valley, through rocks and stunted trees where the horses could not easily follow, and got away into the woods. The rest, the landlady of the inn among them, pressed themselves back against the stone wall of the village and waited fearfully as the troop rode toward them. Lord Vargarten was at their head, his sword drawn, his visor down, his eyes glaring through the dark slit.
“Are you ready to abandon this May-game and walk to your homes?” he demanded coldly. “For I will have no mercy this time.”
The landlady stepped forward, hobbling on her bruised feet. “Your lordship, I am ready to go home,” she said. “As best I can. I can’t walk for pain, but I’ll never go dancing again.”
“Get going, then,” he said without sympathy.
She glanced at Luca, who saw the dark blue bruises on her bare feet above her worn-out shoes. “Surely she can ride behind one of the men,” he muttered to Lord Vargarten. “We gain nothing by losing her on the way.”
“If we gain her death, we are one fool less,” his lordship said grimly. He raised his voice. “Start walking,” he ordered her. “All of you, start walking back to your homes and pray that I forget this folly when I meet you again.”
Most of them bowed their heads and set off on the long trail back to their homes, but one man stood and did a little jigging dance step. Even in this moment of danger, he could only dance. At once, one of the men of the troop spurred his horse forward, without waiting for an order, and swung his terrible axe. It was the work of a moment. There was a cry and a sudden thick gout of blood, and the dancer lay in the dust of the road, his face half sliced, his brains spilling out of his skull.
The troop cheered and shouted bawdy oaths. They felt for their own swords and axes, their horses shifting and pawing the ground, as if they wanted to charge, like a hunt that has been blooded and smells more prey.
Luca, one hand holding his horse still, pushed his fist into his mouth and stifled the rising vomit.
“Anyone else want to dance with me?” the lord yelled. “For this is the dance we’re doing today! Take your partners for a dance with death. Anyone want to partner with my sword? Have a little jig with a naked blade?”
The dancers’ eyes were glazed with shock. They turned and started to straggle back up the road over the hill leading back to Mauthausen. Some of them were so fearful of Lord Vargarten’s merciless temper that they tried to run, a horrible, shambling stagger, glancing over their shoulders as if they feared that the troop would ride after them and cut them down. Lord Vargarten reined in his horse, pushed back his visor, and watched them leave, his expression as hard as his helmet.
Luca spat bile in the dust of the road.
His lordship glanced over. “Never seen a man beheaded before, Priest?”
Luca shook his head.
His lordship laughed. “Well, you have now. And next, perhaps you will see a village burned to the ground.”
“The village? But they have done nothing! They may have saved the Lady Isolde. She could be inside! Lord Vargarten, we cannot . . .”
Lord Vargarten winked at Luca. “I rule my lands by terror,” he said quietly. “That’s why my tenants pay my fees, my rent, and my fines. That’s why this village pays me a tax every year, and every other fee that I demand. I don’t need to know anything about their religion: what they think. I don’t need to know anything about them: what they believe and how they live. I know what I think, and I know what I believe about them. I have no interest in the truth or anything else. All they need to know is that I can destroy them because I wish it, and nobody will stop me.”
“The emperor? Are not all Jews under his personal protection?”
“He knows how it is. He trusts me to keep the country at peace—he doesn’t care how I do it. We all need the Jews to lend us money, to send money to distant towns, to trade. Why, my own sister needed money in Paris and I sent it from here, in this very village! You would think it impossible, but they did it. I sent her a note from this rabbi here and she took it to a Jew in Paris and he gave her the money. In gold, accurate to the last grain. How can such a thing be? Hundreds of miles and hundreds of nobles, on the promise of a name scribbled on a piece of paper sealed with their sign of a six-pointed star. What is that if not some sort of black magic? How do they do that if not by some satanic brotherhood? Nobody but the Jews can lend money across hundreds of miles; nobody but them can be trusted to pay. Thank God that it is His will that we keep them in subjection. Thank God that we are commanded to keep them down.”
“No,” Luca said emphatically. “It is not God’s will. The Church is very clear: they are not to be attacked. They are sinners, I agree, and the trade of moneylending is despicable; but it is not for us to punish them. God will decide their fate.”