Risen (42 page)

Velecent shot a glance at the bone
which was all that was left of the lamb shank. He tossed it into
some brush and wiped his hand on his hip.

A short while later, the three
entered a different tavern, this one off the water’s edge and more
accommodating to quieter conversation of the sort that the men
required for negotiation. They made their way to the back of the
bar. Sitting at a small, roughhewn table close to the hearth,
Salvatore gestured for drinks all around and requested an evening’s
fare for them as well.

Ravan waited until they were served
before he began with, “I have been told that your ship is
fast.”

This prompted a chuckle from the
captain as he attacked the porridge before him, following it with a
generous draft of the ale. He wiped his lips on his sleeve and
grinned boldly, his teeth a brilliant white against his tanned
skin. “You denigrate the Red Raven with your evaluation of
her.”

Ravan’s eyes flashed with surprise.
“Did you say the ship is called Red Raven?”

“It is, and fast is an
understatement if ever there was one. The vessel is fleet as they
come.”

Ravan took a moment to collect
himself, taking a long drink of his own. “Then you can take me and
my men to Antalya and be there before a ship which sailed three
evenings ago?”

“Before it? Three days you say?”
The captain snorted. “You expect miracles.” He became somewhat more
serious. “But catch it. Yes. I certainly can…for a
price.”

“Name your price.”

“Really? And this price, if I name
it…will you be able to meet it?”

Ravan was becoming annoyed by the
man’s propensity to skirt the issue. Along with that went the
simple fact that, because he’d left the realm on such short notice,
he was without immediate capital. He lacked disposable
funds.

“I am leader of the Ravan Dynasty,
northwest of here. My resources are considerable. I will
have—”

“When you have…I will be most happy
to negotiate,” Salvatore interrupted him.

“You obstruct your efforts,”
Velecent warned their new acquaintance. “His resources are great,
enough to make a whole fleet of ships, and then sink them at his
whim.” This may not have been entirely true, but it was no lie
Ravan had capital, just not with him.

Salvatore set his fork down, eyes
narrowed. “Then explain to me why you are without the wherewithal
now?”

“My son was taken in an attempted
overthrow. I gave chase straightaway, tried not to lose the trail.”
Ravan looked at his feet. It was hard for him to face what he
believed to be failure. “I did not believe the chase would go on so
long. I hadn’t the time to pull together my resources before I
left.”

Pausing, Salvatore appeared to
consider Ravan’s testimony. “I see. And it is this ship which has
already sailed that holds your dear son.”

“It is.

“And this is important to me
because…” His voice wandered off, and he waved his hand overhead as
though he might summon the lost child.

This was nearly more than Ravan
would endure, and he began to rise from his chair. Velecent,
knowing his master well enough to recognize small gestures, laid
his hand on Ravan’s arm.

Velecent smiled, and said, “The
child is the heir apparent. Consider him…worth a considerable
investment.”

Ravan wanted nothing more than to
kill the man where he sat. He was intensely frustrated by the whole
affair, chasing, bargaining…hoping. He’d suffered long waits
before, in his past, and strongly preferred to confront his enemies
straight up. But it was immensely difficult to chase them when they
were mere apparitions.

Salvatore, however, was no
apparition. This man had the capacity to help but was not easily
persuaded, even on the life of a child. Truthfully, why would he?
Ravan wondered to himself. Life was cheap, especially that of a
child.

He suddenly wished that Nicolette
was here. She would know what to say, what to do. He was sorry that
he’d not brought her along at the start. Velecent carried the
conversation for a bit, and it gave Ravan the time to consider that
he would give his entire kingdom if he could only have Nicolette
and Risen safe at his side.

Just then, even with the doors to
the tavern closed, a soft breeze blew across the table, making the
candle in the center dance wildly as though it would spring to
life. Ravan stared at the happy flame. Then, as though he’d
manifested a dying wish, the front door of the tavern eased open
and a woman, face covered with a scarf, slid silently inside.
Ravan’s back was to the door, and much of his view was blocked by a
massive, upright timber, so he did not see the traveler drop the
scarf and look solemnly about herself.

Salvatore, however, did have a
direct line of sight, and his interest was gotten straightaway.
Velecent was in mid-sentence when the captain set his ale down with
a thud.

“Now there is respite from the
storm, gentlemen. If you will give me a moment, I shall return, and
we will visit further on this.”

Ravan did not turn to see what
Salvatore so urgently needed to occupy himself with. Instead, he
leaned in to have quiet words with Velecent. Therefore, he did not
see the captain stride directly up to Nicolette with a brilliant
smile and take her hand, bending deeply before kissing
it.

* * *

“My Lady. Such a welcome apparition
after a fortnight upon raging seas. And it has been a treacherous
journey for me. I would be honored if you would—”

“Take me to Ravan.” Her request was
immediate and peculiar, her eyes with an unusual clarity about
them.

This brought him up short. “Excuse
me, I…of course. That is my ship; did I hear you to
mean—”

“Ravan, the man.” Then just as
suddenly she ignored him, instead narrowed her eyes and scanned the
patrons within.

Without seeing him hidden behind the
timber, she knew immediately that he was there and went
straightaway to her husband. Salvatore was left fairly speechless
and quite intrigued.

* * *

Ravan saw Velecent’s eyes go wide,
felt a soft hand on his shoulder. He spun, and there she was. He
found himself face to face with his beautiful Nicolette.

“I am here,” was all she
said.

In an instant he was on his feet and
had her in his arms. He pulled her close, held her tightly, and
whispered, “He’s gone, my love. I was too late, but I will find
him; I promise.”

She kissed him, murmured how she
already knew Risen was gone, how she’d only just made it to the
port herself. “We will go together, bring him and Sylvie back,” she
stated with finality. Behind her, the one handed maiden and
Salvatore stepped closer.

The captain stood beside the table
taking in all of Nicolette. “Well, well. This had just gotten so
much more interesting.”

As though she’d been part of the
conversation all along, Nicolette withdrew from beneath her robes a
significant sack of solid gold nobles. There were at least
two-hundred, enough to gather the attention of anyone
present.

She said to Salvatore, “There are
more, significantly more, but only if you are
successful.”

The captain smiled, stroked the
point of his dark beard while a bemused twinkle danced in his eyes.
“Ah, and now the contract becomes much more enticing.” He seemed to
give it just another moment’s thought before declaring,
“Gentlemen…and ladies…” he bowed deeply again to Nicolette, over
embellishing, “…you have yourselves a ship.”

“Then we sail in the morning?”
Ravan was overcome to have Nicolette by his side. A renewed vigor
flowed into his weary body.

“Meet me at the eastern pier within
the hour.” Salvatore lifted his ale and downed it with one long
pull, slamming the mug back down with a heavy thud. “We
sail…tonight.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

†

Risen was aboard an Ottoman naval
ship, a Turkish Galliot nearly thirty-four meters long. It was
masted but also had twenty rowing banks, each oar manned with six
to seven men. The crew aboard this vessel numbered over a hundred
men and included sailors, officers, rowers, and troops.

The slaves were kept in the
peripheral mid-hold, manacled side by side along the narrow
passageways just beneath the deck of the ship. They were pressed so
close together that it was nearly impossible for them not to feel
the captive next to them, and because the ankle chains were
attached to the floor, it was difficult to change
positions.

From where Risen was held, he could
see the long rowing banks—the rowers with their arms taut as
bowstrings, beating out a cadence to match the hammering of a drum.
The pounding was awful, like a bad heartbeat, and forbade sleep.
The first night, Risen’s head pounded with a headache that had
taken up between his eyes and refused to leave, and he was very
thirsty.

There was little else that he could
see about the ship, other than the rowers, but at one point the
bleating of a goat and the neigh of a horse indicated the cargo was
more significant than just slaves. The seas slapped dully against
the side of the ship, reminding him that there was a space narrower
than his arm that separated him and Sylvie from the watery depths
beyond.

The child slaves were not manacled
at the wrists as the others were, for they were considered a more
negligible risk. If they were foolish enough to attempt escape, the
ocean floor would happily receive their stupidity. Risen knew there
was simply nowhere for them to go, and the circumstances threatened
to capture his young mind as well.

Food was not abundant, but because
the Sultan intended that some of these captives would eventually
serve in his military, they were not starved as slaves aboard some
vessels were. The first time food and water were delivered, it was
by a boy not much older than Risen and black as the night. The
child, barefoot and dressed in only a simple linen vest and what
Risen thought a ridiculous diaper of sorts that twisted about the
boy’s pelvis, paused when he reached the two of them. It was an
unusual moment, almost awkward as the boy glanced furtively about
as though he intended to do something he should not.

The boy extended one thin hand
toward them. Risen thought his long, narrow fingers were as smooth
as the black velvet on his mother’s gowns as the boy reached across
him to hazard a touch of the flaxen tendrils of Sylvie’s nearly
waist length hair. The boy hesitated as though not certain Risen
would allow it.

“Leave her—” Risen began, but
Sylvie lifted a hand in such a way as to silence him.

“It’s all right,” she said, and
with her pale green eyes sparkling clear as a starlit sky, she took
the dark-skinned child’s hand in her own and lay across it a thick
lock of her own hair.

The boy had an expression of
incredulity on his face as he fingered the strands sliding like
silk across the palm of his hand. In a flash, the boy produced from
somewhere a knife and held the unusual sickle shaped blade up in
front of his own enormous, white eyes.

“No!” Risen called out and reached
for the blade, but Sylvie silenced him again.

Risen watched in amazement as the
boy made no further effort to use the knife but laid it simply
across both of his palms, offering it to the girl.

Sylvie then did something very
unusual. With a smile spreading splendidly across her beautiful
features, she accepted the knife and, with a single twist of her
hand, swept it across a good portion of her hair, severing a
section nearly half a meter in length. She held the hair and blade
out to the boy. The knife was received kindly, but the hair was
taken as though it was a great jewel given from the Sultan himself.
The boy dropped to both knees and bowed so deeply his forehead
nearly touched the deck.

The boy rose, stared at the golden
lock of hair, and said something to Sylvie in an unfamiliar
language. Then, dropping a small linen sack and a skin flask into
Risen’s lap, the child was abruptly gone. Within the sack were
dried figs and apricots. In the flask was water. It was as though
she’d performed a miracle, compassion begat of kindness.

“Sylvie, I…” Risen was
speechless.

Then, with not forewarning…she
kissed him.

He closed his eyes, at first simply
astonished. Then he let the kiss steal him away, allowed her lips
to draw from him all the pain the world could offer. Wretched as
their ordeal was, awful as mankind could be, nothing was more
flawless to him than this moment.

He’d long dreamed of this kiss, had
prayed that he might one day know her lips upon his. Never had he
imagined, in all his fantasies, that it would be like this.
Shackled in the hold of a slave ship, bound for a hostile land,
vanquished from all mercy, it was…the most beautiful moment of his
life.

Sylvie smiled softly, her face a
dream to him. Then she rested her head on Risen’s shoulder, and
closed her eyes…and his heart broke perfectly.