The Necromancer's Grimoire Page 11

  “Oh.” Nadira felt color rise in her cheeks. “My guards and my scribe.”

  The Turkish captain looked at the men again with different eyes. Nadira looked only at him. He emanated something she had never felt before. She tried the tendril of light again. When it touched his chest he swung the dark eyes back to her and put his hand over the place where the tendril entered. “I am Ahmed Kemaleddin, captain of the Illuyankas, and the reis of this fleet. Yes, it is you I seek. You are to come with me. I have been sent by the great Padishah to bring you to him.”

  Nadira gasped.

  Instantly Montrose drew his sword. He had not understood the words, but understood the alarm on her face. Alisdair raised his claymore in a high arc that made the Turks step back. The janissaries quickly doubled as more men with crossbows and cutlasses poured in from the other galley. Nadira was wrenched away from the mast by Kemaleddin Reis.

  “No!” she cried.

  Kemal Reis raised his arm and the janissaries froze in place, leaving her men back-to-back, swords and ax ready. No one moved.

  The janissaries were poised to strike; crossbows with their thick flanged bolts were pointed at each man’s chest. Nadira took great breaths to calm herself. She knew there was no danger. Yet here it was before her eyes. The sight of the sharp points forced her to imagine what the iron tips could do to a man’s chest as the bolt flew from the wooden frame and through his body. They made her wonder how sensitive the triggers were. She looked into the cold eyes of the janissary bowmen. What her eyes told her and what her heart told her were so different. The Turkish captain’s grip on her arm tightened.

  Kemal spoke to her softly in Arabic. “If you want to keep your brave bodyguards, you must tell them to drop their swords.”

  She did not hesitate. “He says you must drop your swords,” she said in English.

  Alisdair growled. “I have never dropped my sword.” Garreth snorted in agreement, and shook his ax.

  She appealed to Montrose. “My lord. Remember what I told you. You must trust me.”

  “How can I?” he said through clenched teeth. “How can I drop my sword? If I am to be skewered by Saracens…”

  The man beside her insisted. “I will take you to the sultan with or without your bodyguards.”

  She turned to look up at him. His face was composed, confident. She believed him. “Sayyid…please,” she whispered to him.

  He shook his head. “Not ‘sayyid’. Tell them to stand down, or with a word they will fall, each with a bolt through their hearts.”

  She raised her voice and put a fierce edge to it. “Drop your swords! Now!”

  She was only slightly surprised to hear the clang of weapons bounce on the wooden deck, but not as surprised as the three men who turned to stare at her, incredulous, empty hands held out in front of them.

  “You have not used that power on them before, I see.” Kemal Reis signaled to the janissaries. “Bind them. Bring them.”

  “Bey, they are my friends.”

  “Not Bey. I am the reis of this ship. Call me reis.” He gestured to her men. “They are indebted to you for their lives. Tell them to stop struggling.”

  She said to them in English, “Let them take you. You will not be harmed. The captain has promised. We go to the sultan.” She could not meet their eyes, for she felt the hurt and betrayal that emanated from them, but they relaxed against their bonds. William was pale as death as a janissary led him to the gangplank that connected the two ships. She could feel his terror. A man in a cassock had much to fear in a Turkish prison. She tried to catch his eye to reassure him, but he was already beyond her.

  Kemal Reis looked about him, making decisions.

  “This ship?” She asked him. She thought about the Hermetica and the elixirs in Corbett’s baggage. They would be found and confiscated. The captain of the captured ship and his remaining crew looked miserable. If their families could not pay the ransoms, they would spend the rest of their lives below decks, chained to an oar. A short life. The passengers below had fled the French king to find themselves Turkish prisoners, if not ransomed, then sold as slaves.

  “Not your concern.” The reis interrupted her thoughts. He nodded to one of his men who stepped forward with a thin rope.

  She met Montrose’s darkened eyes. He trusted her completely. She saw it in the way his shoulders straightened, and his arms relaxed against the rope that bound his wrists. Alisdair was not so certain, and Garreth stared longingly at the ax at his feet.

  “I have been sent to escort you to the Padishah.” Kemal reminded her.

  Nadira was escorted to the reis’s tiny cabin and placed gently upon a large stuffed pillow. Two janissaries sat staring at her intently. She blinked her eyes at her captors and teased them with tendrils of light from her heart. They were uncomfortable and visibly relieved when Kemal entered and dismissed them.

  “We shall be in port tomorrow before dark.” He sat down opposite her on the low bench against the bulkhead. “Your companions are enjoying a bit of exercise.”

  She glowered at that news. “You have them at the oars?”

  “Yes. They are well-muscled like heavy frenki horses. I cannot waste that power. Every man here takes a turn at the oars.” His dark eyes were amused, but she did not return the humor.

  “And the lash?”

  “Used sparingly, I assure you.”

  She closed her eyes to see this. Yes. Three lash marks were livid across Alisdair’s broad freckled back. The proud Scotsman was stripped to the waist and chained alone to an oar. Why lashed? The vision came to her of his huge ruddy fists pounding his smaller seatmates until they fell below the bench and were hauled away by the crew. Montrose was bent to his oar beside Calvin, his face as dark as she had ever seen it with a fury that made her wince. He had not been struck. Yet. Corbett and DiMarco were bound below, too old to row. William? There he is. At an oar beside Garreth. His tender hands were already blistered and raw from the rough wood. It would be some time before he would hold a quill without pain.

  Her eyes flashed open at the reis. “At least take my cleric from the oars. You will destroy his hands.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on knees. In a soft voice he said, “As you wish.” She heard the sound of a man getting to his feet outside the thin wood door that separated the compartment from the deck. She knew it would be done. “Any other demands, Nadira Hanim-effendi?”

  Nadira sat back and lifted her chin. “Do not mock me, I am no princess.” He had addressed her with the honorific of a great lady.

  “I am told you are.” Kemal leaned to his left and pulled a roll from a small wooden box beside him. He spread it out on his knees. She could see the beautiful calligraphy that suggested a learned scribe. Kemal tilted the edge of the document so she could read the sultan’s signature at the bottom, a beautiful swirling design that told more about him than his name. “It says here that you are the daughter of Jasmine Hanim, who was daughter of Abu Muhammad Abd Al-Haqq and then was wife to Ahmed Sanjakbey.” He looked up at her. “This means your mother’s uncle was Sultan of Morocco. His son, your cousin, now rules. A cousin to the sultan, hence, princess.”

  Nadira thought hard to remember. She knew her mother’s family had been more important than her father’s. Her mother had been given as a reward for her father’s service in war. He had taken a city, perhaps. She struggled to remember the story. Captured a city and acquired a young daughter of a sultan. Yes. Brought into the royal family as a reward and to cement his loyalty so he could be trusted to hold the city in her father’s name. She shook her head. That part of her life had been banished from her thoughts long ago. Jasmine had told her only enough to answer the questions of a child. Nadira knew that her mother disliked speaking of her life before Barcelona. Her voice would become cold and hard and her eyes would glitter with a fierce anger. Nadira learned quickly not to ask.

  She glared at him. “If this means I will be better treated and my men protected, then so be it. I am beyond
that life. It means nothing to me.” Something else occurred to her. “How is it the sultan knows who I am? How is it he sends a ship for me?”

  Kemal rolled up his letter and tucked it back inside the box. “It would be impudent to question you, Hanim, as well as to answer you.”

  She closed her eyes to search for the answer within his heart. She felt around inside him with a silver tendril. She felt his courage, his sharp intelligence and fierce loyalty. She pushed them aside. Who has sent him, and why? She demanded the answer. A great presence filled her mind. It grew stronger and stronger like the billowing clouds before a great storm. The presence was not Kemaleddin, reis of the sultan’s fleet. Nor the Padishah, Bayezid, known as ‘The Just’. Someone else. She heard the sharp snap of a clap and opened her eyes to see Kemal Reis with his hands together.

  “No!” Do not conjure him here to my ship!”

  Kemal was alarmed, his dark eyes wide and flashing a warning. “Do not summon him!” he repeated with another emphatic clap. “Look at me, not at him.” She blinked herself away from those storm clouds and withdrew the tendril.

  “Who?” She whispered to him. “Who could frighten such a brave man? The man who can pilot a ship through the treacherous currents of the Dardanelles even at night, who is beloved by the greatest sultan in the world, and is admired by every man who serves under him? A man who fears a small woman, though she be confined in a tiny chamber surrounded by the finest janissaries of Constantinople?”

  “Istanbul, Hanim,”

  Nadira smiled at him. His chest rose and fell in a cadence that told her how troubled he was. She gave him a soft sigh and tilted her head. “There is another you fear, then. One who has told the sultan that I am coming and must be captured and silenced.”

  Kemal nodded, his face tight with control. “I am to bring you to the palace unharmed. I come to see that you are safe and comfortable, and to confirm that you are, indeed, the daughter of Ahmed Bey, a princess of Morocco, and cousin to the Sultan.” His dark eyes told her there was more. Somehow he knew of her abilities.

  Nadira blinked at him. “I am.”

  “Good. I know I cannot tie your mind, Hanim, but I can help my men keep their honor and their positions.” He lifted a handkerchief he pulled from within his robes. “You will not be able to order them to release you from this chamber if I bind your mouth and hands. Promise me that you will stay here and you will not be silenced.” She sent another tendril to his chest and was pleased to see him wince as it entered his body. “I cannot stop that, either.” He put his hand over his heart and dug at his chest with his fingers. “But I do not fear the truth. You can see my heart is open.”

  She could. He was true. “I promise,” she said. “It makes no sense to escape from a tiny room unless I plan to leap from the deck into the sea. And you have my men. I will not leave without them. They think you are a pirate.”

  Kemal shook his head. “I am no pirate. My men are not slaves, but a well-trained and proud crew. Most of the men at the oars have no chains upon them, but row willingly for their sultan and the honor of his fleet.”

  “And your prisoners?” she prompted.

  “Yes, there are some prisoners below. As I said, my orders are to bring you in. Your bodyguards are of no account.”

  “They are of some considerable account to me,” she began.

  “And you see that they breathe, Hanim,” he insisted. “I have spared them. I could have left them on the prize under the control of my second. I could have but nodded my head and sent thick bolts through their hearts. But I have brought them on my ship so they may travel with you. The sultan is not your enemy.”

  Nadira sighed. “May I see them?”

  “No.”

  “How long to Istanbul?”

  “Two days.”

  She nodded, thinking.

  “Be patient, Hanim, and do not make trouble. You will soon be in the presence of the great and just Bayezid, Sultan of Sultans. Such an honor is not to be fought against, but eagerly embraced.” He turned to leave her. His fingers continued to rub at his chest as he left the cabin.

  Nadira paced about the small room for a while, and then leaned out of the portal. She felt the ship move up and down with the swells. Kemal’s cabin was the width of the ship just under the small raised deck in the stern. She could clearly hear everything that was said above her by the helmsman and the navigator, though she did not understand Turkish. The swish of the waves as they fell away from the stern was not so loud that it masked their voices or their footsteps. When the light was right, she could even see their shadows as they moved over her head.

  She stopped pacing for a moment, listening. She heard the oars beat the water in rhythm. She heard the steady creak of the timbers as they strained against the force of the wind and sea.

  “We were on our way to Constantinople, anyway,” she mused aloud.

  “Istanbul, Hanim.” The voice came from above her at the helm.

  She looked up between the planks over her head. “Yes. Istanbul, Kemaleddin Reis.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kemal was wrong about arriving before dark. Nadira was brought to the deck and reunited with the others long after dark on the second day. Her men were under heavy guard and held near the stern. She was able to give them an encouraging look before being ushered to the rail by three janissaries. The stars glittered above the city which was lit here and there with small fires and light from the many windows. It was too dark to see the city properly, but the pungent smell of smoke announced a large city with many inhabitants preparing many meals. The familiar harbor smells, as unpleasant as they were, reminded her of her childhood in Spain. The stale smells from the harbor were not a happy greeting as the reis’s men anchored the ship offshore. She knew from her years in Barcelona that the next morning’s sea breeze would wash away the stink and replace it with the fresh air of the sea.

  Three smaller vessels rowed out to greet them and Nadira was tucked into the first with Kemal at her side, steadying the rocking boat as she sat carefully on the bottom planks. Her men entered the other two. She looked up at Kemal to remind him of his promise. He said nothing but put his hand over his heart. She leaned to look behind him and could recognize the dark silhouettes of Montrose and Alisdair being loaded into other boats for the short trip to shore.

  Once on land her men were marched toward the harbor, while Kemal led her in the opposite direction up the hill to a great gate and through the walls of the city. She found that an ominous development. She knew she would have to be separated from Montrose temporarily, but she had assumed they would be in the same house.

  “Where are you sending them?” she asked. But Kemal was too far ahead or pretended not to hear.

  Her concerns grew as she followed the reis up the steep bluffs. They were met by three servants carrying torches to light the rest of their way to a fine wooden house, three levels high at the top of the hill. Lights glowed from the windows on the second floor. Kemal led her to an upstairs room lit with oil lamps suspended from fine chains, and two large candle holders. There was no furniture like there was in her master’s house in Barcelona, but lustrous carpets covered the floor from the door to the narrow window which was filled with a wood screen. The scent of sandalwood and beeswax warmed the air within. She imagined Robert would not be given such a fine place to sleep.

  Kemal did not follow her into the room. “It was not expected I would find you so quickly, the second day at sea,” he said. “Please forgive me for putting you here for now.”

  Nadira opened her hands to him. “This is a lovely place to be a prisoner, Kemaleddin Reis.”

  “An important guest, Hanim. Please.”

  “And my men?” She imagined them perhaps being marched to the galleys or to a prison and tightened her fists.

  “They will go to the barracks.”

  “They will have food and drink?” He seemed sincere, but he might be lying to her. She felt a strange confusion of trust and suspicion
. Barracks were better than prison.

  He looked at her as if her doubt disturbed him. “Of course I will see them fed, Hanim. They will be well treated as long as they do not resist.” He took a step back as two servants entered the room with soft bedding and spread it out against the wall. The servants bowed to him as they left.

  Nadira waited impatiently until they were gone before demanding, “Release them! They have friends in this city. They are not your enemies. They do not need to be retained.”

  He answered slowly and carefully, as if he had anticipated her demand. “I do not have that power. All frenki foreigners must have permission to walk the streets of Istanbul. The vizier will send his assistants to interrogate them. If they carry the correct papers…”

  A wave of fury erupted from her. “Papers? You took them from our ship, how can they have their papers?” She tried to force herself to remain calm. Her fingers tingled with anger.

  Kemal smiled, uncomfortable. “Then we have their papers. They will be questioned. It is the custom.”

  Nadira burned with frustration. He had promised they would be safe. “Honored guest, indeed!” she snapped. She could feel the uncertainty of their fate and her frustration felt like a pillar of fire inside her. “I will see your sultan’s men, but I will tell them nothing.” She stood straighter to appear taller in her anger and pointed a finger at Kemal’s nose. “If you want me to cooperate, you will see them freed tomorrow.” An uncontrolled fury seized her and threatened to explode from her body. She made a fist to contain her anger and flung her hand at the reis, aiming for a place between his eyes.

  He staggered backwards, his hand to his forehead. He said something loudly in Turkish but she did not know what it was. She didn’t care. With a deep breath she gathered another salvo, ready to slap him with it, but he held up both hands.

  “Hanim!”

  She stopped, breathing hard. “Say you will!”

  “Peace. Hanim-effendi.” He knelt. “Peace, Hanim. Peace.”

  Nadira took a step into the room and turned her back on Kemal, thinking. The men were unsettled in the barracks, uneasy and worried about her. None of her friends spoke Turkish or Arabic, though many of the janissaries spoke Latin or Italian. A few of the sultan’s soldiers spoke French. Most spoke tribal languages from the mountains to the north. It would be difficult for them to hear news of her wellbeing. She pressed her hands to her eyes, but looked up when she heard footsteps approach.