Order of Darkness Read online

  They watched Radu unsheath the curved blade of his sword, and from his belt produce two daggers. From a pocket inside his surcoat came the assassin’s weapon, a stiletto, and from a holster tied inside his pantaloons a beautiful miniature handgun. He laid it all on the cobbles at Luca’s feet with an air of quiet pride at the armoury he carried.

  ‘Will you dine with him?’ Isolde asked Peter.

  ‘Not I! My conscience would not allow it.’

  ‘Freize will serve,’ Ishraq reassured her. ‘And he is carrying a knife, and he will be watching all the time.’

  ‘Why would Luca not just send him away?’ Isolde fretted. ‘An infidel! A slaver!’

  ‘Because Radu said he had a manuscript,’ Ishraq answered. ‘He taunted Luca that he had not read the philosophers. Luca wants to know what caused the wave. Radu says that he knows.’

  ‘He’s prepared to risk his life for this knowledge?’ Isolde asked incredulously.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ishraq said as if she too thought that knowledge was worth almost any risk.

  Freize came quickly down the quayside and saw them at the door, peering out. ‘I was looking for you,’ he said to Brother Peter. ‘The little lord wants you to come and write down all that the infidel lord says. He wants a note of the manuscripts.’

  Brother Peter hesitated. ‘I won’t break bread with such a man.’

  ‘Nobody is asking you to dine,’ Freize said, irritably. ‘He is asking you to be his clerk. To write things down. And since you came with us to be a clerk, since we were forced to travel with you and have you every step of the way because they told him he had to have a clerk, it seems only reasonable that you should be a clerk now. On account of the fact that I can serve dinner and save him from being beheaded by the foreign lord or poisoned by the foreign lord or dragged into that damn boat by the foreign lord; but I can’t write, so I can’t write down the endless lies that the foreign lord says. But you can. And so you should. And so you will.’

  Brother Peter stared stubbornly into Freize’s angry face. ‘I shall not. I will not be dictated to by an infidel.’

  ‘You’re a clerk!’ Freize bellowed. ‘You are supposed to be dictated to.’

  ‘I will not sit at his table.’

  ‘Do it standing!’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Ishraq volunteered. ‘I can do it.’

  She dived into the inn and came out with paper, a quill pen and an ink pot.

  ‘You can’t go,’ Isolde said at once.

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Luca needs me.’

  ‘And what do I do?’ demanded Isolde, irritated beyond bearing. ‘What am I supposed to do, while you are there with Luca? Suddenly, you are the only one that can be of any use? When is he going to need me?’

  ‘Go to your bedroom window and keep watch for us,’ Freize advised. ‘Watch the sea in case another galley happens to come along. And if you see anything, scream like a banshee. I don’t trust them any more than you do.’

  He turned to Brother Peter. ‘Does your precious conscience allow you to keep watch for us? While we are half a step from danger and you are yards away, down the quayside?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then you stand half way between the inn and the fort, and if you hear her scream, raise the alarm and turn the men out of the fort to help us.’

  Isolde hesitated, longing to be at the table with Ishraq.

  ‘Go on,’ Freize said. ‘Ishraq has to come because she speaks the language and she can write. But he’d want to keep you out of the way.’

  ‘Oh, I know she is quite indispensable,’ Isolde turned abruptly, without a word to Ishraq, and went up the stairs.

  Freize and Ishraq followed the servants carrying baskets of bread and bottles of oil and wine and water. Luca glanced around and saw them coming, then turned his attention to the galley.

  Radu, now completely unarmed, brought a box covered in oiled pony skin from his ship. He held it before him so that Luca could see there was no trick, and walked towards the table that the servants were setting up. ‘Two manuscripts,’ he said quietly. ‘Only two. I chose to bring these with me because they are about this coast. I have been sailing along it and comparing what I see to what they saw more than a thousand years ago. These are copies of ancient writings held in our libraries. We have the greatest libraries in the world, and translators and philosophers working all day, every day.’

  Luca had a sudden pang of envy that he had no teacher and no books to guide him in boyhood and that the greatest library he had ever seen had been at his monastery where they had three manuscripts and a Bible chained to a desk. But first he had to ask Radu something else.

  ‘I want to find a man and a woman. I believe they were taken on a slaving raid.’

  Radu started to unwrap the waterproof cover. ‘Really? Taken recently?’

  Luca gulped. ‘Years ago, four years ago. My parents.’

  ‘Do you know what ship was raiding? The name of the commander?’

  ‘I don’t even know if he took them or killed them.’

  ‘It’s hard to trace people after a long time,’ Radu said indifferently. ‘But sometimes it can be done. There are thousands of slaves taken every year, but it can be done. You will want to ransom them, I suppose? You need to speak with Father Pietro, in Venice. He buys slaves from us when their families raise the money; he’s accustomed to finding people. Every year he buys a few thousand unnamed slaves with money given from your church and returns them to their homes.’

  ‘He does?’ Luca blinked. ‘I’ve never even heard of him.’

  ‘Of course. Someone has to trade between us. We are two mighty trading empires, and there are all sorts of people coming and going all the time. There are many middle agents, but he’s the best that I know. You are always kidnapping our people and we yours. He deals in the sales of holy relics too. We can’t make them fast enough for you. You have an unending appetite for human bones, it seems.’ He laughed. ‘We could almost think you gnaw on them like dogs. Fortunately, we have an unending supply from our endless victories. What name is it?’

  ‘Vero,’ Luca said ignoring the insult to holy relics. ‘My mother and father. Where would I find Father Pietro?’

  Radu smiled. ‘On the Rialto of course. Slaves are a trade like any other. I should think you can buy anything there.’ He shouted towards his boat. ‘Anyone heard of a man named Vero?’

  ‘Gwilliam Vero,’ Luca prompted.

  ‘Gwilliam Vero. Taken about four years ago. Rowers, you can speak!’

  One head went up. ‘On Bayeed’s ship,’ he said. ‘Two years ago.’

  ‘There you are,’ Radu said indifferently. ‘Father Pietro may be able to trace him for you, if he’s not dead already.’

  ‘Who is Bayeed?’ Luca asked urgently. ‘Where is his ship?’

  Radu shrugged. ‘I don’t know Bayeed. He’ll be a slave raider, and where his ship is right now, no one knows – could be anywhere, working the Italian coast, perhaps Spain, or France. They raid and then take their stock back home for sale. You’ll have to ask Father Pietro.’

  ‘Is the man sure? The slave who knows my father. Can I ask him?’

  ‘He’s sure. No one speaks to me unless they are sure. You can’t ask him.’

  Luca exclaimed with frustration but Radu Bey was untroubled. He pulled out a chair from the table and sat himself down, looking around him as if he was pleased with this unexpected dinner on land.

  The soldiers were coming off the galley now, one by one up the gangplank to take the measurement of the rough-cut mast. They brought with them woodworking tools. They would pare down the mast to fit it exactly to the place on the deck. Below them on the ship, other men were cutting away the broken spars and throwing them into the water.

  ‘Alive,’ Luca said. He was shaking with emotion. ‘My father is alive.’

  Radu looked at him without sympathy. ‘I suppose it’s hard to lose a parent if you love him