AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The frightened merchants and dockworkers were hurrying away, so he noticed immediately the two figures that were sprinting toward him - one was a stranger, one was young Giacomo Gritti, and both carried drawn knives.
'Fetch the guardia, for God's sake!' Duffy yelled shrilly at the crowd, but he knew it was too late for that. Sick with tension, he drew his own dagger and crouched behind his crossed weapons.
The stranger leaped ahead of Gritti, his arm drawn in for a solid stab - and then his eyes widened in pained astonishment, and he pitched heavily forward on his face, Gritti' s dagger-hilt standing up between his shoulder blades.
Separated by ten feet, Gritti and Duffy stared at each other for a moment. 'There are men waiting to kill you on the Morphou,' Gritti panted, 'but the old Greek merchant• man anchored three docks south is also bound for Trieste. Hurry,' he said, pointing, they re casting off the lines right now.'
Duffy paused only long enough to slap both weapons back into their sheaths, and nod a curt and puzzled thanks before trotting energetically away south, toward the third dock.
* * *
Chapter Two
After a bit of token frowning and chin-scratching, the merchantman's paunchy captain agreed to let Duffy come aboard - though demanding a higher-than-usual fare 'because of the lack of a reservation'. The Irishman had learned long ago when to keep quiet and pay the asking price, and he did it now.
The ship, he observed as he swung over the high stern, was notably dilapidated. God, dual steering oars and a square, brailed sail, he noted, shaking his head doubtfully. This one is old enough for Cleopatra to have made an insulting remark about it. Well, it's probably made the Venice to Trieste run more times than I've pulled my boots on, so I suppose it's not likely to founder on this trip. He sat down in the open hold between two huge amphorae of wine, and set one of the weather cloths, a frame of woven matting, upright in its notches in the gunwale. There, he thought, leaning back against it, I'm hidden from view at last, by God.
The sailors poled the vessel out past the clusters of docked galleys, and then the sail was unfurled on its dozen brailing lines, and bellied in the cold morning wind. The antique ship heeled about as the brawny steersman braced himself against the overlapping oar handles, and they were under way.
The captain sauntered about the deck criticizing the labors of his men until the Lido had slipped past on the starboard side; he relaxed then and strode to the stern, where Duffy was now perched on a crate, idly whittling a girl's head out of a block of wood with his dagger. The captain leaned on the rail next to him and wiped his forehead with a scarf.
He nodded at Duffy's sword. 'You a fighting man?'
The Irishman smiled. 'No.'
'Why are you so anxious to get to Trieste?'
'I'm going to enter a monastery,' Duffy said, paring the line of the girl's cheek.
The captain guffawed. 'Oh, no doubt. What do you think you're going to find in a monastery?'
'Vows of silence.'
The captain started to laugh, then frowned and stood up. He thought for a moment, then said, 'You can't carve worth a damn,' and stalked off to the narrow bow. Duffy held the block of wood at arm's length and regarded it critically. He's right, you know, he told himself.
The heavy-laden old vessel made poor time, despite the 'new' lead sheathing which the captain announced, proudly, had been put on by his grandfather; and the quays of Trieste were lit with the astern sunset's orange and gold by the time the craft was docked. The captain was barking impatient orders at his tired crew as they kicked the wedges away from the step and lowered the mast backward across the decks, and Duffy unobtrusively climbed the ladder and walked up the dock toward the tangled towers and streets of the city. Many of the windows already glowed with lamplight, and he was beginning to think seriously about supper. He increased his pace and tried to estimate which section of town would be likely to serve good food cheaply.
The whitewashed walls of the narrow Via Dolores echoed to the clumping of Duffy's boot-heels as the salt-and-dried-fish smell of the docks receded behind him. An open door threw a streak of light across the pavement, and laughter and the clinking of wine cups could be heard from within.
Duffy strode into the place and was cheered by the hot draft from the kitchen, redolent of garlic and curry. He had taken off his hat and begun to untie his long, furred cloak when a man in an apron hurried over to him and began chattering in Italian.
'What?' the Irishman interrupted. 'Talk slower.'
'We,' the man said with labored distinctness, 'have - no - room. Already too many people are waiting.'
'Oh. Very well.' Duffy turned to go. Then he remembered his hat and turned around; a priest at a nearby table was nodding approvingly to the man in the apron, whom Duffy had surprised in the act of blessing himself. After a moment Duffy wordlessly took his hat and stalked outside.
Provincial idiots, he thought angrily as he shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged further up the street Never seen a non-Mediterranean face in their lives, I guess. Thought I was some kind of bogey.
Patches of sapphire and rose still glowed in the late-winter sky, but night had fallen on the streets. Duffy had to rely on the light from windows to see his way, and he began to worry about footpads and alleybashers. Then, with a sound like branches being dragged along the cobbles, the swirling skirts of a heavy rain swept over him. Good God, he thought desperately as the cold drops drummed on the brim of his hat, I've got to get in out of this. I'm liable to catch an ague - and my chain mail shirt is already disgracefully rusted.
He saw an open door ahead, and loped heavily toward it, splashing through the suddenly deep-flowing gutter. Do I actually hear a mill-wheel pounding, he wondered, or is that just some overtone of the storm? No tavern sign was visible, but vine leaves were hung over the lintel, and he smiled with relief, when he'd stepped inside, to see the sparsely populated tables. They won't tell me they're too full here, he thought, beating the water off his hat against his thigh. He went to an empty table, flung his cloak on the bench and sat down next to it.
This is an odd place, he reflected, looking around; that drunken old graybeard by the kitchen door appears to be the host. Gave me a courtly nod when I came in, anyway.
A young man emerged from the kitchen and padded across the room to Duffy's table. 'What can we do for you?' he asked.
'Give me whatever sort of dinner is in the pot, and a cup of your best red wine.'
