Stormbringers Read online

  He dumped the plates on the kitchen table, ignored the flustered thanks of the innkeeper’s wife, and went up the stairs to the attic bedroom room he shared with Luca and the other travellers. Ishraq and Freize were left alone.

  ‘A breath of air?’ Freize suggested, gesturing to the front door and the greying sky and sea beyond.

  She went out before him and he offered her his arm to walk along the quayside in a quaint careful gesture. She smiled and walked beside him, arm in arm, like a young betrothed couple. She noticed that she liked his touch, his closeness, the warmth of his arm, the gentle support as they walked across the cobbles. She felt comfortable with him, she trusted him to walk beside her.

  ‘The thing is,’ Freize confided, ‘the thing is, that I heard you with the infidel lord, on the quayside earlier today, and it’s somewhat disturbing, to know that he spoke to you kindly and that you responded. I know that he spoke to you in a strange language – perhaps Arabic. And I know that you answered. Then, when I asked you, you told me that he said something you couldn’t understand. Now, I don’t want to call a young lady a liar; but you can see that I would have some concerns.’

  She was silent for a moment.

  ‘What I want to know is what he said and what you replied. And also: why you told me that he spoke too fast for you to understand?’

  They took half a dozen steps before she replied to him. ‘You don’t trust me?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is that I heard him speak to you in a foreign language, and I heard you reply in the same language. But when I asked you, you denied it.’ He hesitated. ‘It would make anyone wonder. We don’t need to talk about trust. Let’s talk about wonder.’

  She paused, releasing his arm. ‘You brought me out here to question me?’ she accused him.

  ‘Sweetheart mine, I have to know. Don’t get all agitated with me. I have to know. Because he is the enemy of the little lord’s Milord. You heard him. He said he was the worst enemy in the world. So I have to take an interest. I am sworn in love and loyalty to the little lord, and he is sworn to the rather quiet lord in the blue hood, and so I am bound to want to know what you are saying to his most deadly enemy.’

  ‘You don’t trust me,’ she said flatly. ‘After all that we have been through.’

  ‘Sweeting,’ he said apologetically. ‘Usually I am the most trusting man in the world, ask anyone! I am a great lummock of trust. But here, in these circumstances, I am filled with doubts. I have been thrown about on a great wave, I have been nearly drowned, and now I am troubled by our new acquaintances.’ He spread his big hand to show her his reasons for concern, counting on his fingers. ‘I don’t trust the infidel lord. That’s one. I thought him a most dominant and glamorous character and I have a craven aversion to dominant and glamorous men, being myself humble and ordinary except for moments (I remind you) of great heroism. Two: I don’t trust the little lord’s lord, whose face I have never yet seen, but who seems to frighten Brother Peter out of his wits. He has the ear of the Pope – and that makes him rather important, and I have an aversion to important men, being myself very humble, except (I remind you) for my moments of greatness. He turns up without warning, and he has the best linen and the best boots I have ever seen. That troubles me, since I don’t expect to see a man of the church in the linen of a lord. Three: I don’t always trust your lady given that she is flighty and easily disturbed, and a woman and so naturally prone to error and misjudgment, and today she has been like a caged wolf. I don’t know if you have noticed but she is not even speaking to you? And four: I barely trust myself, what with floods and handsome infidel and miracles, moody girls and well-dressed priests, and so many things that I comprehend as well as the horse – well not as well as him, actually. So don’t, I beg you, take offence that I don’t trust you. You are just one of many things that I can’t trust. You’re number five on my list of fears and worries. Dearest, I mistrust and fear a whole handful of things. Believe me, I doubt everything else long before I would ever doubt you.’

  She was not diverted by his list, as he hoped she would be, but turned frosty-faced, without saying a word, and stalked back towards the inn. Freize, watching her, thought that he had never before seen a woman who could walk like an irritated cat.

  He saw that he had offended her, and very deeply, and went after her with two long strides and caught her at the door. ‘Don’t be angry with me,’ he said softly into her ear. ‘Not when you were so sweet to me when I came back to you through the flood. Not when you can be so kind to a little thing like the kitten, and so loving and tender to a big thing, a big foolish thing like me.’

  She was not to be persuaded. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, since you are going to Venice,’ she said coldly. ‘Perhaps my lady won’t want to come with you to Venice. Perhaps we’ll go at once to Budapest and leave you, then you can doubt someone else.’

  ‘Ah no,’ he said quickly, putting his hand in hers to swing her gently round. ‘Of course it would matter. Wherever we were going. But you must come with us to Venice. You can get to Budapest from Venice as easily as from here. And besides, the lord in the hood is giving us money to set up a house in Venice. You would like to do that. We shall set out our stall as a prosperous family. Your lady can live as she should, as a lady in a beautiful palace with lovely clothes for a little while. We can all get a bath in hot water – think of that! You can buy some lovely clothes. Perhaps we shall make a fortune. Perhaps you will like Venice.’

  ‘It hardly matters what I like,’ she said irritably. ‘It’s only ever what she likes.’

  ‘I know. But you’ll make friends again,’ he counselled gently.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll make up your quarrel.’

  ‘We haven’t quarrelled. What do you think we are? We’re not stupid girls to have a quarrel over nothing. We have never quarrelled in all our lives. You don‘t begin to understand us. You don’t have any idea about me.’

  ‘He’s a handsome young man,’ Freize said gently, showing no sign of his amusement at her indignation. ‘He’s bound to cause a bit of a yowling in the cat basket. Bound to set the little kittens scratching at each other.’

  He nearly laughed out loud to see her chin come up and her temper flare in her dark eyes. But then he admired how she caught herself, and acknowledged the truth of what he was saying.

  ‘Well, we’ve never quarrelled before,’ she explained.

  ‘The two of you were never on your own with a handsome young man before,’ he returned. ‘There was no real cause.’

  She giggled. ‘You make us sound rather . . . ordinary.’

  ‘Little cross hens in a hen house,’ he said comfortably. ‘Very, very ordinary. But at least you have me to fall back on.’

  ‘When would I fall back on you?’

  ‘When he prefers her to you. When he makes his choice; if it’s not you. When you are down to the bottom of the barrel. And have to scrape.’

  Again he saw her colour rise. But she managed to laugh. Ah, but you swore loyalty to her already. I’m not such a fool that I don’t know that everyone always prefers her to me. Everyone always will.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said tucking her hand in his arm again. ‘I worship her from afar. I have promised her that she can call on me as her squire. I have offered her my fealty, of course. But you . . .’

  She was ready to be offended. ‘Me? Don’t you worship me from afar?’

  ‘Oh no. You, I would bundle up behind the hayrick, lift up your skirts, and see how far I could get!’

  He was ducking before she even swung at him and he laughed and let her go as she turned in the inn door.

  And she was laughing too, as she went up the stairs to the bedroom that she shared with Isolde to tell her that they were all to go to Venice, and that they could stay with the two young men for a little while longer, whoever was in love, whoever was preferred, whatever might happen.

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