“I see.”
“Are you shocked?”
“No, only...” Pausing, he turned fully toward her. She halted as well, wondering why he looked so troubled.
“What of your mother’s family?” he asked. “Your mother herself?”
“She died when I was ten. Jason and I moved about a great deal. He was always needed somewhere. My grandmother lives in Gjirokastra, but the others are all dead.”
Now Jason as well, she thought, and the ache sped swiftly from her heart to catch in her throat. She resumed walking. “That was all long ago,” she said tightly. “Let us speak of something else.”
As it happened, they’d no time to change the subject Varian had so thoughtlessly introduced. Their approach speedily attracted notice, and in minutes all of Rrogozhina rushed out to welcome them.
There was a great deal more to the village than Varian had guessed. He was quickly surrounded by a crowd of men, on whose fringes stood another crowd of women and children, all of them talking at once and never uttering a word he could understand. Nor could Petro, evidently, who complained that the dialect was impossible.
Varian’s head pounded and his ears rang. He was tired and hungry, and so filthy he wanted to crawl out of his skin. Had Esme not taken charge, he might well have sat right down in the mud and wept.
As she’d predicted, the villagers took no notice of the ragged boy Esme appeared to be, and nearly trampled her as they swarmed about Varian. She doggedly elbowed her way back to his side, however, and in minutes had fully obtained their attention.
Less than an hour later, thanks to her, Varian was lowering his aching frame into a large wooden laundry tub filled with steaming water.
The tub stood in the central washing room of a cluster of connected cottages. These belonged to the extended family of his host, Maliq. Beyond, in the kitchen, Varian heard the chatter of women’s voices as they prepared a feast to honor his lordship. Closer to hand, in the small passage just outside the doorway, Petro stood, dutifully brushing his master’s clothes.
Most of Varian’s wardrobe remained on the ship. None of the crew had proved insane enough to accompany them for any price, and three people, on foot, could only carry so much. Which meant that Varian possessed exactly three changes of linen, one coat, one heavy cloak, and two pairs of trousers.
Though accustomed to changing several times a day, Varian had thought he’d manage adequately for the day or two it would take to reach Tepelena. It was not as though he expected to attend soirees on a regular basis. He had never dreamed the journey would involve several tons of mud and enough crawling creatures to fill Westminster Abbey.
He was soaping his neck and contemplating the tragic condition of his expensive shirts when Esme burst through the doorway, stopped dead, then hastily backed out.
Petro’s roar of laughter rang through the passage.
“Son of a jackal!” she shouted. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“A thousand pardons, little one,” came the chuckling answer. “I thought you were in a great hurry to wash his back.”
“That is not amusing,” she snapped. “Also, you are a very poor servant to let someone interrupt your master at his bath. Have you no respect for his modesty?”
“Modesty?” Petro echoed. “Y’Allah, half the women of Italy have seen his—”
“Petro,” Varian called out sharply.
Petro hastened to the doorway.
“Yes, master?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, master.”
The passage fell deadly quiet.
Varian quickly finished his bath, threw on the immense robe his hostess had left for him, and called them both inside.
Esme entered and, without looking at him, gathered up the towels he’d thrown on the floor and draped them over the tub handles. Then she sat down upon the floor in her usual cross-legged position and studied her hands.
Petro stood cringing by the door.
“You will apologize, Petro, for your tasteless prank,” Varian said. “Even now, our young friend must be devising ways to get even, and I had much rather not be caught in the middle, thank you.”
Petro promptly dropped to his knees before her and commenced banging his head on the floor in an exaggerated salaam. “A thousand thousand pardons, little one,” he said abjectly. “May I be forever cursed, may my limbs rot and fall off, my—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “It is not as though I have never seen a man without his shirt before.” As Petro hastily rose and resumed his dignity, she looked up at Varian, and a faint tinge of rose washed her cheeks. “All I saw were your shoulders and that was hardly for a moment, and—”
“And it’s a very deep tub,” Varian said.
The rose deepened. “So it is. Also, my mind was altogether elsewhere, I promise you, or I should never have rushed in upon you in that mannerless way. Did I not order the bath myself? But I forgot, because—”
“Because you were in a great hurry to tell me something, I think.” Varian crouched before her. “What was it?”
She gave a quick glance at the doorway, then turned back to Varian and whispered, “Esme has been killed.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rrogozhina had word days ago of the abduction. That is why they all rushed out to welcome you, and why they fall all over themselves to make you comfortable.”
“So it must be,” Petro agreed. “I was much amazed to see all the women come out, with the little ones.”
“But days ago?” Varian asked. “That’s impossible. How—”
“In Albania, word flies through the air, like the birds,” she said.
“Aye, master,” Petro eagerly put in before she could continue. “They cry out from one mountain to the next. A great, ear-breaking shriek it is. And such faces they make—”
“Never mind that. What about your—about Esme being killed?” Varian asked her.
“Bajo sent word, in the manner Petro tells you, that Jason was murdered and an English lord’s son taken by bandits,” she explains. “But Bajo also reported that Esme was killed in the villains’ attack. Do you see how clever he was? By now word has surely reached the villains who sought me—that is, Esme—and—”
“And so there won’t be any more abduction attempts.”
“Now you’ve no need to be uneasy,” she said confidently. “All is as I told you—even better. No one will guess I am not who I pretend to be, and the people will make your way easy. Further south they are doubtless looking for Percival, or have already found him and are keeping him safe. Also, by now the villains must surely be fleeing both Ali’s and their own master’s wrath.”
About this time, some thirty miles south of Rrogozhina, several unhappy villains were arguing in harsh whispers while a twelve-year-old boy slept nearby. Half the party felt he should simply be abandoned where he was. Even now, Ali Pasha’s men might be on their trail. The other half argued that the boy merely represented an unfortunate mistake. If he came to harm, however, even Ismal could not protect them. Besides, the child had given no trouble—except when anyone touched his leather bag. Since it proved to contain only rocks, of no value whatsoever, they concluded he was a trifle unhinged by the recent excitement.
“Only a mile west is the abode of a priest,” Mehmet pointed out. “We can leave the boy with him.”
“Aye, you need a priest badly enough,” said Ymer. “That game piece the master gave you is cursed. Since we got it, there has been nothing but trouble. We go to the house, the girl is gone. We hasten to the shore, and half of Durres waits, armed. Two of my cousins are killed, and we carry away an English boy, a lord’s son, by mistake. Now the Red Lion is dead, and his daughter, and we will be blamed for everything. Ali will kill us by inches.”
The mention of curses made the group uneasier still.
“Bury it,” one suggested.
“The evil will remain,” said another. “Best to give it to the priest, and the boy as
well.”
“Ismal will be furious. The little chess piece was to be returned to him.”
“In the girl’s possession, fool! The girl is dead, and Ismal cannot expect us to take it back to him now. Ali will roast us on a spit!”
“Best to hide in the mountains—and go now if we wish to keep our heads.”
While the others continued debating, Mehmet rose and crept to the sleeping boy, opened the leather pouch, and dropped the black queen, thickly wrapped in a rag, among the rocks.
Returning to his companions, he said, “I’ll take the child to the priest, because I wasn’t paid to kill little boys, merely to steal a female. Sooner or later, someone will take the boy to Ali for safekeeping, or to the British in Corfu. Perhaps Fate will lead the chess piece back to Ismal. If not, it wasn’t meant to be.” He shrugged. “If the thing’s truly cursed, it’s best out of his hands.”
Several hours later, Percival lay upon a hard pallet in the humble abode of an Albanian priest. The dying fire’s feeble glow created shadowy shapes in the dark room. The window showed only a slit of black, no glimpse of a star.
On the pallet opposite, the priest snored raucously. The irregular series of snorts, growls, and wheezes was symptomatic, Percival thought, of the nasal obstruction Mr. Fitherspine, his last tutor, had suffered. The sound was so normal that one might almost believe the last few days were just a dream. Only they weren’t, and wishing otherwise wouldn’t solve anything.
The priest had cried when he told Percival that Uncle Jason and Cousin Esme were dead. Percival hadn’t. It had all been too strange: the young priest telling the awful news in Latin—for they had no other language in common—while tears trickled down the sides of his bumpy nose. Percival would not cry now, either. If he gave way to tears, he’d give way altogether. He needed to think.
Drawing his leather pouch close, he took out the object he’d dared do no more than touch while the priest was awake and resolutely unwrapped it. There. The black queen. Proof he hadn’t dreamed. The bandit had put it in his bag…after an angry conversation with the others, of which Percival had understood only one word: Ismal. He was sure, because he’d heard it several times.
He crept toward the hearth and unscrewed the chess piece. And stared…because the slip of paper was still there. Bewildered, he took it out and, in the faint light of the embers, studied his father’s message.
The code was ludicrously simple. It merely turned the alphabet around, substituting “Z” for “A” and so on. Then the words turned into Latin. Ungrammatical, but clear enough. The ship was the Queen of Midnight, delivery in Prevesa, early November.
That was about all Percival understood. He didn’t know why his papa had put anything so incriminating in writing. Or why Ismal hadn’t destroyed the note—unless he’d never got it. Above all, Percival wondered why on earth the bandit had stuck the queen in his leather pouch.
As though it mattered. Whatever the explanation, it must be ugly because those men were ugly, and other ugly men had killed his uncle and cousin.
Percival dropped the paper onto the embers, then hastily snatched it back, brushing off the sparks. Angrily he rubbed away the tears welling in his eyes. Uncle Jason would never do such a cowardly thing. He’d been killed trying to save Albania from the man to whom this message had been sent. Someone needed this information, and that someone would never believe a twelve-year-old boy without proof. It was Percival’s duty to pass on all the evidence…and let the world know his father was a base smuggler, a criminal—oh, heavens, perhaps even responsible, albeit unwittingly, for his own brother’s murder?
“Oh, Mama,” Percival whispered, gazing down unhappily at the black queen. “What on earth am I to do?”
Chapter Five
Neither Maliq nor his company sighed or salivated over the English lord at supper. After all, they were not dissolute denizens of a corrupt court. Though gracious and hospitable, they had too much pride to fawn all over him.
Which wasn’t to say they weren’t curious. While Rrogozhina saw many visitors in the course of a year, a foreigner was a rare species, and this exotic newcomer was, in addition, tall, graceful, and handsome. They found his physiognomy, attire, and behavior thoroughly fascinating, though they had the dignity not to show this in any blatant way.
At least the men didn’t, Esme corrected herself as she followed him to his chamber and saw two plump, pretty girls peeping out at him from a doorway, their mouths hanging open. When he turned to bid them good night, they giggled and retreated. Fools, Esme thought disdainfully. If only they knew what a depraved, idle piece of worthlessness he was.
At supper, Esme had been obliged to introduce him properly to the company. When they had first arrived in the village, he appeared so tired and ill that formalities were left for later; first, the English lord must be made comfortable. Not until supper did she realize she’d never been honored with a formal introduction. Three nights she’d slept beside him, and she didn’t even know his name. The English baron, the lord. That’s all she’d heard from Petro and the captain—as though the man’s true name was too holy to be spoken aloud.
“Tell them your name,” she’d whispered harshly as the women carried in the food. “I don’t know it.”
In quick, clipped syllables, he’d tossed out a long, ridiculous set of names: Varian Edward Harcourt St. George, Baron Edenmont of Buckinghamshire, England. Then he’d given her the most obnoxiously smug smile, as though defying her to remember it all. Though she’d wanted to slap him, Esme had turned to her host and gleefully supplied a translation, at the end of which she heard several smothered chuckled in the audience.
“What the devil did you tell them?” he’d whispered, making her ear tickle.
“St. George is Shenjt Gjergj, a saint they all recognize,” she said. “I told him a baron was something like a bej, and a shire was one of England’s pashaliks.”
“What’s so hilarious about that?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps it was your Christian name. I said it was from Latin. Varian,” she said, pronouncing it with the wide vowels and burr of Albanian. “Fickle, it means.”
“Later,” he warned, “I shall spank you.”
Nonetheless, he’d laughed, and the company with him, and someone had said his laughter was like music.
Though she much doubted his lordship had the temerity to spank her, Esme was not eager to be alone with him. She trailed him into the chamber and pulled the door hanging closed behind her. She’d only make sure he had all he needed, she decided. Then she’d be quit of him for the night.
The room was small. All the same, by country village standards, it was luxurious. Few houses had more than two rooms. Maliq’s encompassed six, and this must have been fitted up to accommodate visiting dignitaries. Instead of sofas—the boards built against the walls to serve as couches and beds—the tidy space boasted one large bunk and a substantial hearth. They’d given the Englishman not only the softest cushions and thickest blankets, but privacy, a rare commodity.
Two large pitchers filled with steaming water stood by the hearth, and a kettle hung from a chain over the fire. A twinge of envy pricked her. She’d washed her face and hands earlier, all the while acutely conscious he’d hardly consider that sufficient. Petro hadn’t needed to tell her how fastidious the master was. She had a nose and eyes, didn’t she? She’d seen how clean his shirt was, and could not remember when her own had gleamed so dazzlingly white.
Still, Esme would never dream of imposing on strangers. She knew what it was to haul buckets home from the village well or nearest stream and heat kettle after kettle of water. Since she was supposed to be a boy—Petro’s nephew—at present, she must leave that work to the women, and she hadn’t wanted to add to their burdens.
“You’ll have peace and comfort now,” Esme said, glancing about the room. Her gaze lingered one yearning moment upon the pitchers of hot water and the precious cake of scented soap adorning an embroidered towel. “They’re all going t
o bed. No one will trouble you until daybreak, and I’ll be back then to interpret.”
He sat down on the edge of the bunk, brought one lean, muscular calf up to rest on his knee, and tugged at his boot. “You won’t be back, since you’re not leaving,” he said. “I won’t have you sleeping with Petro and all those men, and you can’t go with the women.”
“I had thought you would prefer your privacy.” She watched uneasily as he tossed away the boot and yanked at the other one.
“I prefer to have you nearby,” he said. “When you’re out of sight, I find myself imagining every sort of disaster. I would rather not lie awake all night in that state. It’s no reflection on your gender, I assure you. If you were Percival, I’d feel exactly the same. Recollect what happened when he took off on his own.”
“It is not the same,” she answered. “For one, my cousin and I are not at all alike, except outwardly. For another—”
“Esme, you can argue until Doomsday if you like, but the long and the short of it is, I shall not sleep a wink tonight if you leave.”
Which meant that tomorrow he’d be tired and cross, and she would be to blame. Esme set her mouth, strode to the bunk, snatched a blanket, and threw it onto the floor near the hearth.
“I didn’t mean you had to sleep on the floor.” He rose from the bunk. “Naturally, you may have the bed.”
“I shall sleep on the floor,” she said firmly. “My bones are not so tender as yours.”
He smiled. “Perhaps not, but yours aren’t very well padded.”
“They are younger and more flexible,” she answered witheringly.
“You find me decrepit?”
Esme flicked one resentful glance up and down the length of his perfectly proportioned body. “That is not what I meant. Just because you are a grown man, and strong, does not mean your endurance is greater. I should sleep contentedly upon the floor, whereas you will surely lie awake half the night in great cold and discomfort. I advise you to enjoy the soft bed while you might.”
“But I’m determined you should enjoy it,” he said. “I’ve fully made up my mind to be chivalrous.” His smile broadened into a teasing grin. “Shall we commence a war of wills, madam? Shall we see who is the more obstinate?”