The Red King (15 page)

The boy bowed and left, but not before he
flashed great dark eyes and a sweet smile in Andrew’s direction.
Andrew noticed and watched him leave with a suspicious expression.
Rory saw him clench his jaw and briefly considered warning Etienne,
but he decided to let the Frenchman face Andrew’s anger as
unprepared as he had been.

Andrew turned to them with an angry snarl.
“Is he another test? If I pass this one, will you lead me to the
sheep I saw in the market yesterday?”

This caused both Rory and Etienne to laugh,
loud and long. Etienne was still laughing, wiping tears from his
eyes, when Nadir returned with a tall silver carafe and a stack of
small, gold trimmed glasses. “Oh, Andrew, I’ve met the sheep and
they do not deserve you. But if you choose to part company with
this one,” he gestured towards Rory. “I promise to introduce him to
an obliging ewe.”

Andrew settled, some, and went on his knees
beside the round table laden with food. He cast Etienne a
disparaging eye. “If it would help your ‘cause’, why not do it
now?”

Rory chucked and scooped another bit of meat
and couscous into his mouth. “No, Etienne, hold off. There is no
need. Besides, I prefer the little wolf’s howls to the bleating of
sheep, even if it means I must bear a bite on occasion,” he said
around his food.

“
La petit loup
…yes, I can see the
resemblance,” Etienne remarked, avidly watching Andrew take a piece
of lamb between his teeth, scowling at them both.

Andrew picked another piece of meat from the
platter. “What’s your part in all of this Etienne? I had believed
that all of my lessons were to come from Rory, but perhaps he needs
assistance with the more difficult instructions?”

Rory tried to look wounded, but he could not
prevent his smile.

Etienne took his side. “Now, Andrew, don’t be
hurtful,” he said, patting Rory’s knee, comfortingly.

“I wish to know.”

“It’s not my tale to tell, Andrew,” Etienne
rose from the couch, taking a glass of sweet mint tea. Before he
reached the door he said, “If you’re staying, show him the
library.”

The library was not a large room, but its
walls were lined with shelves reaching nearly to the ceiling. Each
shelf was spilling over with scrolls, handwritten texts, and
printed pamphlets. There was a large, open window to provide ample
light, a table and chair, and a low couch piled with cushions in
the far corner. It was Rory’s favorite room.

Andrew’s hands hovered over the items he
perused, as if he were afraid to touch them. He showed particular
interest in the printed material, his fingers finally landing on a
stack of small booklets. “I went once to Pluscarden and saw their
library. This rivals even that one.”

“Etienne is a man of letters. He values the
processes of the mind and believes in its power, not the power of
an unseen All-Knowing presence,” Rory said as Andrew eagerly
scanned one of the pamphlets.

“He doesn’t believe in God?” Andrew asked,
looking at Rory with wide, shocked eyes.

“He calls himself a deist. He says he
believes in something, but that it doesn’t control his life,” Rory
answered, perching on the corner of the table. “He told me once
that if God controls men’s actions then he would rather be a beast
in the forest, for the beast is honest.”

Andrew was troubled by this notion. “But God
made us. He gave us our reason and our will.”

“And cast us upon the wind to find our own
way.”

Rory expected an argument, some protestation
from the young man, but was yet again surprised.

“When I asked Father Armand about pain and
death and why we must have both,” he began slowly. “He told me that
men were responsible for their own actions. He said if they
followed the commandments given to us by God and His Holy Son that
all of our choices would be made for us, but it was still up to us.
I didn’t understand at the time, I was only a boy, but perhaps it’s
the same idea.”

“Your abbot did not believe in the
preordination of man? How very…protestant of him,” Rory teased.

Andrew sent him a sour look. “He was,
perhaps, a bit,” he conceded after a moment. “Our teachings were
not entirely in keeping with the Roman Catholic doctrine, though
officially the order was Cistercian. There was much of the old
ways, what little remained from before the council at Nicaea. There
were a few who kept them, hiding in smaller cloisters, or alone.
Most of the others left to join with the Benedictines. It
was…safer, I think, and certainly easier than waiting.”

“Safer than what?”

“It was the Covenanters or the Inquisition;
either one could have ended us. The Covenanters would not care if
our castellum was small, our numbers few. They sought to drive all
remnants of Rome from the country. The Tribunal still sent its
emissaries to us, even up to Christmas past. It would have taken
very little to put an end to our existence. Entire villages had
been cleared, in the years before. The remains of their structures
and their wells still stand,” Andrew said. He was very serious and
sad, as he spoke. “Every day we woke facing risk of expulsion or
death.”

Rory had no idea the threat had been so close
to them. He knew the terror of the Inquisition was still very real,
spilling from its native soil to terrorize even in the dawning of
the new age. The Covenanters he had not heard tell of, but the
passion of Cromwell and his followers was not to be underestimated.
Why then did this small group of monks march out of the relative
safety of its home and into the land of the Inquisitorial Council?
“You were on your way to Spain when you were taken. Was your
pilgrimage so important that you would risk the peril?”

“A messenger came with a Papal dictate. We
were given no choice. It was sudden, we only had one week to
prepare,” Andrew said, sitting in the chair.

Rory was suspicious of this message,
immediately, but could not isolate the thought that disturbed him.
When he looked to Andrew, he saw misery and fear, and the desire to
comfort was powerfully compelling. He pushed all qualms aside and
laid a hand on Andrew’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “No more talk
of this. You sit in one of the finest libraries in the city. I’m
sure he will have something that will engage your mind.”

“I’d rather come with you,” Andrew said.

Surprised, Rory stepped back. “You would
rather crawl through the streets with me than stay here, amidst all
of these texts?”

“This is part of my other life,” Andrew
whispered, voice trembling. “I don’t want to be cloistered,
anymore. It’s too much like a punishment. It’s too lonely.” He
cleared his throat and stood. “I’d rather be out there, with
you.”

The admission made Rory smile. He couldn’t
stop it from spreading across his face. Inwardly, though, he cursed
as much as rejoiced. He knew that Andrew was still vulnerable in
the dangerous streets and that made him a distraction. “As much as
that would please me,” Rory said, his hands coming up to hold
Andrew’s face. “You cannot come today. This mission puts me in a
treacherous area and I would be hindered by your presence.”

Rory knew he’d said it wrong, implying that
Andrew was a burden, but did not apologize. It would be better, he
decided, for Andrew to remain unmindful of the depth of his
affections. It was still not easy to watch his face fall with
disappointment and a little hurt.

“This new world you went on about leaves much
to be desired,” Andrew said, dejectedly. “It seems to be much like
the old, only hotter.”

Rory took his face again and pulled it to his
own. “I wager there is more of this,” he murmured, and kissed
Andrew, deeply. When Andrew weakly resisted, Rory slid fingers to
the back of his of head and gripped his hair, tilting him back. The
surrender came quickly, the tension ebbed and Andrew’s body went
lax and trembling. Rory ended the kiss with a brush of his lips and
beard across that tender mouth before pulling away. “This is the
last of my business. We’ll be gone in two days and in Tipaza the
same.”

Andrew sighed, nodded.

“You’ll have your new world, Andrew, and my
story. I promise.”

The streets leading to the High City grew
increasingly unclean as they approached the eastern wall. There was
no part of Algiers that was untouched by the criminal occupation it
suffered, but this quarter was overcrowded with thieves,
mercenaries, and the meanest whores. The sublime pleasures of
Etienne’s house were the promise of Heaven itself compared to the
filth and foulness of the east end. It was where the secrets were
kept, though, and Rory needed to know the game.

The old man was called
Hoca
, or
teacher, but he was not a man of learning. He was a man of
information. He kept spies all over the city and those who knew
where to find him could ask, pay, and receive that information. If
the man was feeling generous. Rory found him in a small, dirty cafe
that, only rarely, actually served anything. It was peopled only by
the teacher and one other man, wrapped in a burnoose with a filthy
turban hiding his head.

When the teacher saw Rory he shouted in an
aged, feeble voice. “You! What do you want? I have nothing for you.
Nothing! Go away!”

The man was small, dark-skinned, and white
haired. He was wizened, wrinkled from either the Bedouin trail or
dissolute living, Rory was not sure. “You have ears and eyes all
over this city, all over the coast. I know you’ve heard. Just tell
me what happened when the
Taibhse
docked. The story came
well ahead of us. Who responded?”

“I do not know of what you are speaking!
Leave me alone!” the old man cried, his hand waving Rory away.

Rory grabbed his wrist and held. “The name.
The response.” He placed two gold coins into the man’s palm.

The man laughed at him, his voice no longer
simple or aged. “I like you. You ask simple questions.”

“I seek simple answers.”

Laughing again, he pulled his arm from Rory’s
grasp. “I am sure you do.”

Rory did not laugh. “I could get those coins
back, if I wanted.”

“Could you now?”

There was a sharp point pressing into his
side. The man beside him wore his head cover low, shading his eyes,
and wrapped around his mouth. There was no expression to read,
nothing to show his intent. Still, Rory did not like being held at
knife point. He struck only once, smashing his fist into the
uncovered nose and wrenching the blade from the man’s hand. Rory
flung him to the ground and turned in time to hold the knife up to
the old man’s throat, causing him to freeze with his own knife
raised to strike at Rory’s back.

“I have much at stake,
Hoca
, but what
I ask from you is very small. It is nothing worth having your
throat cut over.” Rory did not lower his knife.

The Teacher laughed. “Yet you are willing to
cut it, aren’t you? Perhaps the stakes are becoming too high for
you and your Ghost. You are sought by a dark man with silver eyes.
He was less generous than you, or he would already know you sleep
in the house of the Frenchman.”

“When did he come?”

“Just today, after the prayers,” the man
answered, grinning.

Rory reached into his pouch and pulled out
another gold coin. He placed it in the man’s hand. “Remember my
generosity, old man, when he returns. Tell him I leave on the
Taibhse
today.”

The old man laughed. “We shall see.”

Wrapping his burnoose around his face, Rory
turned away. He came to face the man he’d hit, who was now bleeding
from the nose. The man stepped aside and gave a small bow. Rory
narrowed his eyes, but returned the bow and left.

Hell and damnation!
Rory swore,
internally, moving quickly. This threw his plans into disarray,
moved his schedule up considerably. Maarten’s men could not know
where their encampment was located. If they found out where they
were going, it would be the end of it all. His plans to leave two
days hence, to have the ship take them to Tipaza, had to change. He
needed to get the ship out of the harbor. He needed to get Andrew
out of the city. He needed to do it now.

Rory went straight to Amira, seeking Malik.
She greeted him with her hair uncovered, only a loose caftan
covering her ample curves. “Of course, he is here. Come in, come
in. What has happened?” she asked, seeing the dark look on his
face.

“There is no time, Amira. I’m sorry. It is
quite urgent,” Rory said, hands on her shoulders.

She took his hand and led him to the back of
her villa. “Malik!” she called. “Your captain needs you! Make
yourself presentable!”

There was rumbling laughter and Malik’s
booming voice said, “And how would you have me do that, Amira? I am
never presentable!”

Stopping before a large, ornate screen, Amira
said, “You can cover your great, hairy body, at least! Your Captain
does not want to see you looking like a wild bear.”

“In other circumstances, I would find this
most amusing, Malik,” Rory added. “But I’m here with an
emergency.”

Malik appeared, his head clearing the top of
the screen easily. “Yes, Captain!”

Rory looked up at him, unable to contain a
smile. “Sometimes, Malik, you put me in mind of an imp, which would
not be funny if you were not so large. Listen, I need you to rouse
the men and get the ship out to sea.”

“Tell me more, I will dress.”

“Things have progressed faster than I
anticipated and the ship needs to leave the harbor as soon as
possible,” Rory said. He squeezed Amira’s hands and looked at her
as he continued. “The men that have been watching the ship have
begun their machinations much too soon. I need Malik to take the
ship out while I go to Tipaza over land.”