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  She let him wait for her answer—she could smell the acrid scent of his terror. “I’ll give you more than that: I’ll give you your life if you answer my questions.”

  A little gleam of cunning came into his hazy eyes. “And spare me?”

  “If you are honest. Remember that I know Lucretili and Giorgio, probably better than you do. Don’t lie to me, for I swear if you do, I will cut your throat without a moment’s remorse.”

  He gulped. “I’m thirsty, and I have a terrible pain.”

  “Yes,” she said without any sympathy. “You’re lucky to feel pain. If the stone had been one inch higher, you would have lost your eye and died. So to my questions: Who sent you to us?”

  “The lady’s brother, Giorgio. He said I was to kill her or destroy her and get the broadsword.”

  “Why did he want the broadsword?”

  “For the authority. It’s the lord’s sword—he always had it mounted up before him when he sat in judgment. Nobody will obey a fool like Giorgio without it.”

  “Did Giorgio say anything about a message that it carries?”

  “No.” The peddler shook his head and then moaned with pain and held his head still.

  “D’you know why it is bolted into the scabbard?”

  “I swear I don’t know. I just had to get the broadsword.”

  “Why did you attack me?”

  “Everyone knows you would die to save her. Everyone knows you are her trained and dangerous bodyguard. He told me to kill you first and then get rid of her.”

  She nodded, she could feel her anger like a fever. She took a breath and banked it down. “Where did you get the poison for the earrings?”

  “Giorgio gave it to me. I had poisoned rings and a necklace as well.”

  She took a little breath to contain her hatred of him and his master. “Why send her out to the dancers? Wouldn’t it have been easier to poison her? Why did you do that? And how did you do it?”

  She saw at once that his thudding head was clearing; she had reminded him of his power. She held the blade of her knife gently against his cheek and thought that she could plunge it into the pulse point. “If she went away with the dancers, then no one would come looking for me,” he said. “I didn’t calculate that you would recover. I am surprised at it. That’s a powerful poison.”

  She nodded. “How did you send her out?”

  “I have a gift,” he said, his voice softer, persuasive. “Like lulling a child to sleep. I can talk like this, gently, softly, and I can make someone do whatever I wish. Whatever I wish, little lady. I can put the thought into their head as if it were their very own. Why, even you might be glad to hear me speak gently to you. Who else speaks gently to you? You might be tired, your eyelids might be heavy, you hear what I am saying and you just want to sleep. If I were to count from five to one, you would be asleep by the time I got to two. It’s just a little thing I can do—you would like it.”

  He put his hand to where his cheekbone was throbbing, but his eyes were sharp above the darkening bruise. “Because you are weary and you have ridden a long way, and you were sick when you set out,” he whispered. “So of course you are very sleepy. I’ll start to count now,” he said gently. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

  But Ishraq’s gaze was steady on him; her hand holding the knife did not soften; certainly, her eyelids did not droop. “And you are a dead man when you get to one,” she told him, her voice as gentle as his.

  Isolde rose unsteadily to her feet, and dipped and swayed in a dancing movement. Freize took her hand and together they faced the stranger as he came down the street, his hand on the hilt of his great scimitar, his dark blue eyes unwaveringly fixed on her.

  “Wait a moment,” Freize said quietly in her ear. “Isn’t this the Ottoman slave trader? The one that is the sworn enemy of Luca’s lord? The one who told Luca how to find his father in slavery?”

  “Radu Bey?” Isolde asked. Despite herself, her feet moved a little as if they would dance, even without music.

  “That’s the one,” Freize said drily. “And Ishraq was his secret friend, though he was Milord’s sworn enemy.”

  “I never met him,” she said, as she eyed the man coming toward them, light on his feet in his black leather riding boots. “I only saw him from the inn windows. Are you sure it’s him?”

  “There can’t be too many like him,” Freize remarked. “I would swear it is the same man. He’s said to be a great commander of the Ottoman army, a Christian by birth, second in command to the sultan. So what’s he doing here, in this village?”

  The stranger stopped before them and made a little bow, a mere nod of his head, then turned to the rabbi and put his hand on his heart and made an obeisance.

  “Are you Radu Bey?” Freize said bluntly. “For I think we have already met.”

  The stranger turned to him and took in the stocky truculence of the young man, the dirt on his clothes and the exhaustion in his face.

  “We’ve met,” he said shortly. “But you were then in better times.”

  “Oh,” said Freize. “I’ve had all sorts of times since then. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. But I think perhaps you have too. When we met, you were a slave trader on a great slaving galley with maps and knowledge of the stars and a wicked ship with a great spike in the prow. You dined with my master, Luca, and I think you crept into our house at midnight and pinned your badge on the heart of his lord to show him that you could have killed him while he slept. Am I right?”

  Radu Bey inclined his head in assent, smiling slightly.

  “A threat,” Freize said. “To Luca’s lord.”

  “Say more a jest, a family joke.”

  “So what d’you call yourself now?” Freize demanded.

  “Still a trader,” Radu Bey said, with a smile to Isolde that almost seemed to ask her to forgive such a transparent lie. “And I was never a slave trader—I was not slave trading when you saw me. I was traveling on my own galley.”

  “As I remember, it wasn’t rowed by free men,” Freize said sharply.

  “No,” Radu Bey replied. “My crew were slaves, of course. I have no great interest in the freedom of infidels.”

  “And are you a Jew now?” Freize asked rudely.

  “Freize!” Isolde exclaimed.

  “I was born a Christian, but I converted. I am now a Muslim. I honor the Jewish faith, as anyone must who loves scholarship. We are all People of the Book.”

  “You must forgive us both,” Isolde interrupted. “We have been in danger and very afraid. We are in terrible trouble now. I was going to ask you a great favor.”

  Radu Bey bowed his head. “I am bound to help a lady who seeks my help,” he said formally. “What may I do for you?” he asked as if he could not see the constant shifting of her feet and the red shoes stained a deeper red with her blood.

  “I want you to cut off my shoes,” she told him. “We can’t get them off. I have to be rid of them. They’re making me dance, and nobody here dares to do it. Can you cut me free?”

  “Without hurting her?” Freize added.

  Radu Bey looked doubtful. “My scimitar is so sharp that you could shave with it,” he said. “But to cut your shoes from your feet without injury? It would be easier by far to hack your feet from your legs and leave you with stumps. That would prevent you dancing, my lady! Would you risk that?”

  Isolde took a deep breath and sat down on the cobbled threshold, rested her back against the gate, stretched out her legs, and showed him her ceaselessly twitching feet. “Cut the shoes,” she said. “Try. And if you can’t do it: cut my feet off.”

  He hesitated, as if she had surprised him. “You really want me to cut off your feet?” he asked. “This is a poor joke.”

  “Cut the shoes,” she said. “If you can. But if you have to take off my feet at the ankle, then do that.”

  “The pain would be unbearable,” he cautioned her, and was surprised at the unflinching reply.

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