As for me, I had a cabin in the aft castle; a narrow berth, to be sure, but my own. The hempen strands of my hammock cradled me securely, and I slept soundly therein.
The winds held steady and we surged ahead of them, a froth of white water where our prow cut the seas, keeping in sight of the coastline for the most part. The Captain, whose name was Louis Namot, was quick to summon me, pointing out such sights as might be seen from shipboard. I have learned, since, that there are sailors who think a woman's presence aboard ship to be a sign of ill luck. Elua be thanked, D'Angelines are spared such idiotic supersti tions.
There is a certain peace to it, committing one's fate to the seas, even as there is in surrendering to a patron's will. I thought often of Hyacinthe on that long journey, wondering if he had come to gain mastery over the scudding waves, and how such a thing might be accomplished. I wondered, too, how far his dreadful inheritance extended. Rahab's realm lay everywhere pn the deep, if Yeshuite teaching was to be be lieved; but the Master of the Straits was born of a D'Angeline woman, who loved a mortal Alban, and I never heard of his dominion extending beyond the waters that bordered our two lands.
With such things were my thoughts occupied during our journey, and I daresay it passed quickly enough. White- winged gulls circled our three masts as we travelled, always within a half-day's sail of land. I thought them pretty; 'twas Remy who told me that they followed the wake of offal left by our galley, descending to pluck the waters clean of fish entrails and other such discarded matter.
Day by day, we made our way northward up the length of the Caerdicci coast.
We passed tiny islands; barren rocks thrusting into the ocean, fit only for gulls and the poorest of fishermen. 'Twas another matter, according to Louis Namot, on the far side of the sea, the Illyrian coast, which was fair riddled with islands, rich and fertile and a veritable breeding ground for pirates. Indeed, his men kept a keen watch once we'd rounded the point, sharpening their swords and manning the trebuchet mounted atop the forecastle, but we passed unmolested. Illyrian pirates are notorious, but their country is caught between the hammer of La Serenissima and the anvil of Ephesium; they have no quarrel with Terre d'Ange.
On our twenty-third day at sea, the watcher in the crow's top the midmast gave a shout, and we passed the isle that marks the outermost boundary waters of La Serenissima. Unlike the others, this was no barren grey hummock- a sheer cliff faced the sea, black basalt crags towering angrily above the waves, which broke hard on the rocks below. I didn't know why, as we passed, the sailors all whistled tunelessly, and had to ask the Captain.
"La Dolorosa," he said, as though it explained everything- even he averted his eyes from the black isle. "It is a Ser emssiman superstition, my lady. They say that when Baal-Jupiter slew Asherat's son Eshmun, the Gracious Lady of the Sea wept and raged and stamped her foot, and the floor of the sea rose up in answer, spewing forth La Dolorosa to mark her grief."
I am always interested in such things, and leaned upon the guardrail as we sailed by, giving the black isle a wide berth. There was a fortress nestled amid the crags, and I could make out the faint, spidery lines of a hempen bridge suspended high in the air, swaying and sagging betwixt the isle and the mainland. "But why do they whistle?" I asked intrigued.
"To mimic the grieving winds, and turn aside the wrath of Asherat-of-the-Sea, who is wroth still at the death of her son." Louis Namot shuddered and took my arm, drawing me further in deck. "My lady, if you ask me on dry land, I will say it is an old quarrel between the descendants of the Phoenicians and the conquering Tiberians cast in terms to explain a volcanic phenomenon, but we are at sea, and I do not want the Gracious Lady to think we mock her grief with staring. I pray you, turn away!"
"Of course, my lord Captain," I said politely. His manner eased the moment I obeyed, and he wiped his brow. "Forgive me, my lady," he said, apologizing. "But the currents around La Dolorosa are strong and uncertain, and no one is wise who mocks the superstitions of a place! most especially not a sailor."
"No." I remembered Quintilius Rousse tossing a gold coin to the Lord of the Deep upon reaching safe harbor in Alba. "I should say not."
"I heard tell of a rich merchant," one of the sailors of fered, "who laughed at the ship's crew for whistling, and no sooner had he done, than a great wind came up and the ship heeled hard about, and he was thrown over the side and dashed on the rocks of La Dolorosa."
"No," said another. "I heard it too, only they never found his body."
"And I heard," Louis Namot said grimly, "his corpse washed ashore on the isle of Kjarko a hundred leagues south, on the Illyrian coast. And that, lads, is no Mendacant's tale. My uncle served aboard a trireme under Admiral Porcelle, and they chased down a band of Illyrian pirates who were raiding D'Angeline ships along the point. Their captain was wearing the merchant's signet. He pled clemency and told how they found the body. My uncle had to return it to the merchant's widow."
I turned back and gazed at the black isle, dwindling in our wake, the fortress towers silhouetted against the sky. "Who would live in such a place?"
"No one, by choice," the Captain said shortly. " 'Tis a prison."
"The worst prison," a sailor added, and grinned. "If
I'm
ever accused of aught in La Serenissima, I'm taking refuge in the temple of Asherat, I am! I'll take the veil myself, like Achilles in the house of Lycomedes, and give all her priest esses a nice surprise!"
One of his fellows hushed him quickly, with a furtive glance in my direction. I paid it no heed; I'd been three weeks at sea, and had heard worse. Sailors must make do with one another aboard ship—those who favor women are notoriously eager upon making landfall.
Still, it made me think on what I knew of La Serenissima. Women do not hold offices of power in most of the Caerdicci city-states, that much I knew. It is men who built them, and men who rule, by dint of toil and iron. Asherat-of-the- Sea holds sway, still, because she is the Gracious Lady of the Sea, and men who live by the grace of the sea are wise enough to fear her wrath, but this was not Marsilikos, where Eisheth's living blood runs in the veins of the Lady who rules there.
In La Serenissima, it would be different.
Soon the lookout cried again, and presently we saw before us the long, low line of the spit that bars the great lagoon of La Serenissima; the Spear of Bellonus, they call it, another legacy of the Tiberians. It extends nearly all the way across the vast, wide mouth of the lagoon, some seven leagues long, forming a natural barrier well guarded by the Serenissiman navy.
As we drew near to the narrow strait that breaches the spit, there were a great many more ships to be seen, of all makes and sizes, flying all manner of colors: cogs and gal leys and triremes, and the low, flat-bottomed gondoli and gondolini with the curving prows and sterns that are ubiq uitous in the city, propelled by skilled rowers at tremendous speed. And, too, there were craft I had never seen before, small ships with masts canted forward, bearing odd triangular sails—of Umaiyyat make, the Captain told me. It did not look as though they could carry much in the way of cargo, but they moved swiftly and agilely across the waters, tacking back and forth before the wind while larger vessels must needs go to oars.
A fleet of Serenissiman gondolini surrounded us at the mouth of the straits, their insubstantial menace backed by manned watchtowers on either side and the presence of the navy within the lagoon. Namot's papers, his writ of passage, were all in order, and in short order, they waved us through.
Thus we entered the lagoon.
Joscelin had come to stand beside me in the prow of the
Darielle,
and I was glad of his presence as we gazed together on our first sight of La Serenissima.
Serenissimans claim she is the most beautiful city in the world, and I cannot wholly begrudge them; 'tis indeed a splendid sight to see, a city rising up from the very waters. I had read what I could find prior to our journey, and I knew it was an ever-ongoing work of tremendous labor that had built La Serenissima, not on dry land, but on islands and marshes, dredged, drained and bridged, oft-flooded, always reclaimed.
If I sound unpatriotic in acknowledging the city's beauty, I may add that a great deal of the engineering and building that had made her splendid had come in recent decades, under the patronage of Prince Benedicte de la Courcel, who brought with him Siovalese architects and engineers when his fate was wed to the Stregazza family, exiling him from his homeland.
The sun shone brightly on the waters as we crossed the lagoon and made for the Great Canal, the sailors cursing good-naturedly as they took to the oars. Ahead of us, galleys and darting craft were everywhere on the vast waterway. Ti- Philippe, who had been once to the city during a brief ap prenticeship aboard a merchanter, took it upon himself to point out the sights.
"The Arsenal," he said reverently, nodding behind us to a vast, walled shipyard hugging the lagoon. "It houses one of the finest navies in the world, and they can build a ship faster than you can cut timber." As we curved along the vast quai, he simply pointed. "The Campo Grande. There lies the Palace of the Doge. At the end, the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea."
The Great Square; it was that, indeed, a vast, marbled terrace simply opening onto the sea. In the center, where it verged the water, stood a tall column, and atop it a statue of the goddess, arms outspread, gazing benignly over the lagoon. Asherat-of-the-Sea, bearing a crown of stars, waves and leaping dolphins worked into the plinth. To her left stood the Palace of the Doge, a long, tiered building worked in white marble, with a level of striated pink, surprisingly rich in the glowing light.
It is the seat of all politics within La Serenissima, and not merely the Doge's home; within those walls was housed the Judiciary Hall, the Chamber of the Consiglio Maggiore, indeed, the Golden Book itself, in which were inscribed the names of the Hundred Worthy Families deemed fit to hold office in La Serenissima.
Beyond, at the far end of the square, sat the Temple of Asherat, with its three pointed domes; an Ephesian influ ence, that, for they ruled La Serenissima for a time and worshipped the goddess under another name. I could see little of the temple, as the square itself was crowded with a vast market, stalls occupying preordained spaces marked in white brick, and, in between, a throng of people. Serenissimans and other Caerdicci, most of them, but I saw unfamiliar faces—proud Akkadians and hawk-faced Umaiyyati; Menekhetans, dark-eyed and calm; Ephesians; even an entourage from Jebe-Barkal, ebony and exotic.
And here and there, fair, brawny Skaldi, which gave me a shiver.
Then we were past it, and entering the mouth of the Great Canal itself, and Ti-Philippe pointed to the left where stood the Temple of Baal-Jupiter on the island's tip. It had clean, straight lines in the Tiberian style, and before it stood a statue of the god himself, one foot striding forward, thun derbolt in hand.
He had slain Asherat's son, according to myth.
I knew what the Captain had meant; 'twas but a transla tion of mortal history into divine terms, the faith of the conquering Tiberians mingling with the beliefs of those in habitants they found here. Still, I thought on the black isle of La Dolorosa, and shuddered.
Great houses rose along the canal after that, splendid and magisterial, with balconies and winding stairs leading down the quai; along its length were docked craft like the gondoli, only larger and more luxurious, canopied, painted in bright colors and rich with gilt and carving. I did not need Ti- Philippe to tell me we were among the homes of the Hun dred Worthy Families.
I did not need Ti-Philippe to point out the Little Court, although he did.
I daresay it was nearly as large as the Doge's Palace, although not quite. Three tiers tall, with long, colonnaded balconies, rippling water-light reflected along the marble length of it. Fluttering pennants hung from the balconies, bearing the silver swan of House Courcel.
Deserving of its name, I thought.
And then we were beyond it, and sailed beneath the cun ning, peaked bridge of Rive Alto that linked the largest is lands of La Serenissima, tall enough to admit a galley to pass, and on our right stood the vast, elegant structure of the Fondaca D'Angelica, the D'Angeline warehouse. Already the Captain was shouting to men on the quai, and the rowers heaving to all on one side, as our ship wallowed in the deep green waters of the canal and sailors tossed ropes ashore, bringing us to port at last.
I had reached La Serenissima.
THIRTY-ONE
After so long at sea, 'twas strange setting foot on solid land, and I was hard put not to stagger, unnaturally con vinced that the quai moved beneath me. Around us was the bustle of the
Darielle's
docking and laborers working to unload her cargo, and all at once I felt weary and salt-stiffened and in dire need of rest and a bath.
Thanks be to Blessed Elua, my chevaliers were solicitous and capable, quick to swing into action. Joscelin was no help; having finally gained his sea legs, he was twice as queasy as I on solid ground. But my factor's man in La Serenissima was present as arranged, and Remy and Ti-Philippe rounded him up in no time. Once he was done gloating over the quality of our shipment of lead, he greeted me unctuously.
