Stormbringers Read online

  ‘Praise be!’ someone said.

  ‘Amen,’ Isolde replied fervently.

  ‘Indeed,’ Freize said. ‘And bless the horse. For I would not have lived through that, but for the strength and wisdom of a dumb beast. So you tell me who is the wiser?’

  Ishraq could see Brother Peter biting his tongue to stop himself replying that the horse, any horse, was undoubtedly wiser than Freize.

  ‘And then when we were sure we were on land again, and hoping that the sea was never coming back, I looked around me and found that they had all stayed together, like the sensible beasts they are; even the little donkey who likes to play the fool had stayed with us. I gathered up their halters and I climbed back on Rufino, without saddle or bridle, and, though we were all so weary, I rode a little way uphill, for though I could see the water was seeping away, I was still very afraid of it. As soon as I thought we were high enough and dry enough I told my five horses and the little donkey that we would spend the night and rest, and try for Piccolo in the morning.

  ‘Well, we were further away than I knew, for we have been walking all this long while back to you and I’ve seen many sad sights all along the way. Good houses ruined, good fields destroyed by salt, and more drowned animals and good people than I could bear to see. All the villages I passed by are filled with sad people seeking their own, and burying their dead. Everywhere I walked they asked me had I seen this child, or that woman, and I was sick to my heart that I had to say that I was alone in my ship like a poor ill-prepared Noah, and saw no one and nothing from the moment that the great wave came.

  ‘And I didn’t stop, except to sleep at nights, which I did once in a farmer’s damp barn, and once in a wrecked little inn, for I was so anxious to come back here and find you. All the way I have tormented myself that the wave was too fast for you and that I had saved five horses and a little donkey, God bless them; but lost the most precious man in the world to me.’ He looked at Luca. ‘Little sparrow. Did you perch all night on the roof?’

  Luca laughed shakily. ‘I have been sick with grief for you. I thought you were dead for sure.’

  Freize wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I was a Noah,’ he said grandly. ‘A Noah of six beasts, and all of them geldings, so of no use to anyone. But I did ride my ark in a great flood. If I had not been so weak with fear I would have been impressed by the adventure. It was the strangest thing. And when I have stopped being so afraid of the memory it will make a very good story and I shall tell it at length. And when I have forgotten that I cried like a coward I shall give myself many good speeches and be the hero of my story. You have it now as it was – before improvements. You have it as a true history and not a poem. I am not yet a troubadour, I am a mere historian.’ He turned to Isolde. ‘And you, my lady? I have been fretting about you, without your squire at your side to guard you. You were not hurt?’

  She gave him her hand and he kissed it. ‘I’m just so very pleased to have you with us again,’ she said simply. ‘We have all been praying for you. We had special prayers said for your deliverance, and every day we have been looking and looking out to sea.’

  He flushed with pleasure at the thought of it. ‘And the horses are well,’ he assured her. ‘Shaken, of course, and tired – oh they are weary – poor beasts. I doubt they’ll go very willingly on board a ship again, but they are fit to travel.’ He turned to Ishraq. ‘And you were safe? You got quickly to the inn. I trusted you to see the danger and run. I knew you would understand.’

  She nodded gravely at him. ‘Safe,’ she said.

  ‘And Brother Peter. I am glad to see you,’ Freize volunteered.

  ‘And I you.’ The clerk extended his hand and shook Freize’s hand with unmistakable warmth. ‘I have been afraid for you, on the flood. And I have missed you these last days. I have regretted some hard words that I said to you. I am more glad than I can tell you, to see you safe and back with us. I prayed for you constantly.’

  Freize flushed with pleasure. ‘And the children of the crusade? Were they all lost? God bless them and take them into His keeping.’

  ‘Some were saved,’ Isolde said. ‘Saved by you. The ones that you warned and sent back to the village got as far as the church and were safe. They’re travelling home, while the little girl Rosa, with the hurt feet, who you sent back, is here and will serve as a kitchen maid at the inn. But many of them, most of them, were taken by the sea.’

  ‘It’s been a terrible disaster,’ Luca said quietly. ‘We buried some of them this afternoon. We were going to leave tomorrow. We would have left you messages, where to come. But now we’ll wait here a few more days, and you can rest.’

  ‘No, we can go. I can sleep on the ship,’ Freize said, ‘if someone can promise me that such a wave will never happen again. If you promise me that the sea will stay where it ought to be, I’ll get on board and sail tomorrow. I think God has sent me a sign that I will not die by drowning.’

  Brother Peter shook his head. ‘Nobody knows what it means, or what caused it,’ he said, not looking at Ishraq. ‘So nobody can say if it will ever come again. But it has not happened in this generation, not even for a hundred years. We can only pray that it never happens again.’

  ‘Is there no way of knowing?’ Freize asked Luca. ‘I admit that I’d cast anchor more happily if there was any way of knowing for sure.’

  Luca frowned. ‘It’s the very thing I have been puzzling about,’ he said. ‘The horses seemed to know.’

  ‘They did know,’ Freize said certainly. ‘And the kitten knew too.’

  ‘And there was a terrible noise, and the sea went out, drained away, before it came in.’

  ‘The wave itself didn’t rear up out of nothing,’ Freize was thinking out loud. ‘It was rolling in, as if it might have come from some distance, as if it might even have swelled and grown out at sea. If anyone had been far out at sea they might have seen it beginning.’

  Luca nodded, and a few people crowded around Freize to ask more questions and he answered, pausing only to drink wine, happy to be in the middle of the crowd and the centre of attention. He did not speak again to Ishraq, nor she to him, until almost everyone had gone. Brother Peter was putting his cape around his shoulders to go up the hill to the church for the night service, and Luca, Isolde, and Freize were following him. Ishraq saw them out of the front door of the inn and was closing the door on the cold night air, as Freize turned back to speak to her.

  ‘You were safe?’ he asked. ‘I knew that you would get Isolde out of danger.’

  ‘I’m safe,’ she said. ‘But I was very afraid for you.’

  He beamed. ‘Afraid for me? Well, we agree on that. I was afraid for myself.’

  ‘It was a brave thing to do – to go back to free the horses.’

  He shook his head. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’d have done it if I’d known the wave was coming so quick. I’m no hero, though I am sorry to say it. Very sorry to have to confess it to you.’

  ‘I have something for you,’ she said smiling. ‘Hero or not.’

  He waited.

  From the inner pocket of her cape she produced the sleepy little kitten. Freize cupped his big hands and she put it gently into them. He took the kitten up to his face and inhaled the scent of warm fur, as the little thing stretched for a moment, and then wound its golden tail over its white nose and snuggled down clasped in his big hands.

  ‘You saved it for me?’

  ‘I woke in the night, last night, thinking of you and remembering it, and I got out of bed and went up the ladder to the roof in the darkness, and fetched it down from the chimney pot.’

  ‘You went up and down the roof in darkness?’

  ‘I should have remembered it before.’

  ‘Was it not dangerous?’

  ‘Nothing like you in the flood.’

  ‘You were thinking of me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said frankly.

  ‘Worrying about me?’ he suggested

  ‘Yes.�