The Codex Lacrimae (5 page)

While agreeing with Clarinda that they should take a wide route to avoid the pirates, her father surprised her with the statement that he'd not make for Tyre. Instead, he intended to land farther south in a very strange place that lay out of their normal trade routes — Caesarea. Once a bustling port during the Roman Empire, Caesarea had fallen into disuse over the past centuries. There was still a remnant of a harbor there, but not of a size to accommodate five Trevisan ships.

“If you want to make for a city farther south than Tyre, why not Tripoli, or Acre? Either one has a large harbor,” Clarinda pressed. “There's nothing in Caesarea for us. It's a shallow port and unprotected.”

“I need to go to Caesarea, Clarinda…on some personal business. We'll offload the rest in Alexandria.”

“Alexandria? What about landfalls in the northern cities of the Levant? We need to at least stop in Tortosa. Pasquale made a deal to get those Flemish bolts to Antioch, and the costs to transport from Tortosa to Antioch are neglible. You remember what those things cost —”

Angelo grunted, but said nothing. He'd crossed his arms across his chest, and Clarinda knew that when he took such a stance there'd be no defying him.

“It's a personal favor that I'm doing, Clarinda. The fee for the bolts won't be that much more if we ship from Caesarea – plenty of caravans that need the money. Don't bother yourself with it.” Angelo Trevisan replied, but he knew his daughter well. She wouldn't be satisfied with such an answer and, sure enough, he followed her gaze to the two chests in the corner of the cabin.

“Ah,
sì
.
It involves those things,” he said curtly, “and, for your information, I wasn't ‘sneaking them aboard.' It's my ship, I can lade what I want.”

“I didn't say you were sneaking, Padre.”

“I know that look. There's nothing to worry about, Clarinda, and nothing sinister here. I know their history. The crates came originally from Lubeck, then came overland through Leipzig before reaching Venice. They belong to the Templar Grandmaster in Caesarea and I need to deliver them.”

“Then we won't be declaring them with the port authority when we reach the Golden Horn in Constantinople,” she mused, clarifying in her mind the possible black market transaction that her father must be engaged in.

Irritated, she returned her attention to the map sprawled on the table.

“I'll deal with the harbor master, but let's be done with this matter. Simply pretend that you never saw them,
mia figlia
.
”

“Fine. I never saw them.”

“Clarinda…, please, don't be like that.”

Clarinda said nothing, but Angelo remained foremost in her awareness as she peered at the cartography before her.

As it always did, her silence made him uncomfortable. After a moment of busying himself with putting charts back in their nooks, he turned to her. “I don't want to fight. Look, Clarinda. Look at me, I say. If you want to go to Tortosa to get that cloth to Antioch, take them with the
Viator
after we leave Constantinople.”

“The
Viator's
full of grain! You want me to bring that ship to the County of Tripoli?”

“Why not? We can sell its grain there as well as in Alexandria. Pasquale's going to be delayed at the Golden Horn, anyway — he needs to handle the consignments from the Scandinavian and Frankish fairs.
Si
,
this will work. We'll all meet in Alexandria after I finish the…business in Caesarea.”

“As you wish, Padre,” Clarinda agreed, but she didn't look at her father. It was obvious that he didn't want her to accompany him to Caesarea. That bothered her. Although Clarinda had a dutiful nature, this would be the first time that they would separate on a voyage.

Upon maturing into womanhood – or, at least, turning fourteen and allowed to participate in the family business ventures — the professional side of her relationship with Angelo usually superseded daughterly devotion. Clarinda had earned her place as the
Maritina's
second-in-command within a year of coming on board, so great an impression had she made on her father and the crew.

During the subsequent time she'd seen sides of her father that she sometimes wished had remained unseen and unknown, especially when he was around his younger brother, Verrocchio, and particularly after the two men had been drinking. Except when Angelo really irritated her, however, Clarinda frequently followed her mother's example and kept silent about the mercurial nature of her father — to do otherwise would be an exercise in frustration because, like her mother, she knew that her father would never change.

So, when her father had asked her not to pursue the matter of the two wooden chests in his cabin, she nodded assent and pretended to focus on the map and the possible problem of Seljuk pirates on the high seas.

Now, a full four weeks after that discussion, while the priests and patriarch at the altar blessed the congregation in the enormous basilica, Clarinda desperately wished that she'd pursued the topic of the two chests when she'd had the chance!

Instead, she'd allowed both her father and herself to start making idle chitchat about the sea-route that the
Maritina
would take to Constantinople.

“Let's go, Clare,” Genevieve whispered as the priest passed them on his way to the rear of the vast basilica, “we've got to get on with your plan to get away from mother and father.” The other members of Genevieve's family — her parents and three of her five older brothers — rose to their feet with the rest of the gathered assembly.

“This is going to be so exciting.” Genevieve continued in a hiss. “I love adventures! Are we really going to the wharves at night?”

“After losing these dresses,” Clarinda clarified. “Alex brought our clothes to one of the guard houses on the way.”

The worshipers began moving into the nave and side aisles, some milling about to converse with friends, but most walking toward the many exits of the great church.

Clarinda remained standing with her head bowed and hands clasped before her face, wanting to say a final prayer for her father.

Alexander, the eldest of Genevieve's brothers leaned on the polished wood of the pew and hissed quietly to Clarinda. The sound got her attention, and she looked at him.

“We'll wait outside, Clare,” Alex smiled as he whispered. “The younger kids know what we're planning.”

“That's fine. I only need another moment.” Clarinda replied, and again bowed her head. Genevieve and her family departed from Clarinda's view, and she exhaled deeply in relief when they were gone.

Clarinda's thoughts drifted back to her father.

A few days after their discussion in the captain's cabin, and the night before the
Maritina
made landfall in Constantinople, Angelo had joined Clarinda on the main deck as she watched the moon reflecting on the sea.

The illumination was so bright that they'd decided to keep sailing later than usual. Still concerned about her father, Clarinda took watch at the helm to relax, but that night there was no pleasure in the routine activity. She ceded control of the wheel to the regular navigator, Pasquale, and moved to the starboard rail.

Then Clarinda became mesmerized by the gently lapping motions of the water against the wood of the hull, by the slight flap of the sails high above her, and by the muffled sounds of the crew playing a drinking game in the galley below; all the noises gave her a comfortable, secure feeling that she yearned to keep for the rest of her life.

Nowhere in the world was she so fulfilled as when she was at sea, and to no one in the world was she more devoted at seventeen years of age than her father.

Yet, Angelo had been acting strangely on this voyage. He kept to his cabin more often than usual, and the few times he'd appeared on deck, his eyes were bleary and red, effects either of too much drink or exhaustion. Clarinda knew that something must be deeply bothering him, but she had her own concerns and wanted to give him privacy.

She herself had been having a strange dream recently, a recurring vision of a broad subterranean pool, whose slight ripples shifted in rainbow colors across the water's calm surface.

In this dream, however, the beauty of the pool was marred by the startling sight of a head floating in the air above it!

No body was attached to the man's face, and he shouted something at two cloaked women who were battling with a man in a black robe that had a boldly embroidered white-cross upon the chest. Just in the shallows of the rainbow waters, another man (clad in similar black robes to the first), knelt over a third cloaked woman who lay limply in his outstretched arms, her body in an awkward, broken, and seemingly dead position that sprawled half submerged in the pool.

Clarinda watched from a shadowed recess in the cave, and one of the women, grappling with the viciously fighting man, broke away from the battle to move toward her, extending a hand in a gesture of welcome or plea for help.

Then, Clarinda's attention focused on the second dark-robed man. After laying the dead woman gently aside, he sprang upward toward the other robed man and drew a sword with such speed that it frightened Clarinda even though she wasn't the knight's apparent target. When he came to his full height, the pool's lights revealed the second man to be a gorgeous youth, gigantic in stature, and close to her in age. She'd become increasingly attracted to him after weeks and weeks of the same dream (albeit from afar, for they'd never spoken to each other).

That young man sloshed quickly through the shallow pool and was about to strike the aggressive killer when everything disappeared in a blaze of fire that ignited the waters and dreamscape into exploding colors.

Inevitably, Clarinda would awaken in her own bed, sweating and greatly confused, but so intrigued by this handsome young man who tried to save the two surviving women from their nightmarish assailant.

Now, Clarinda wasn't as religious as her father would prefer, but the consistency and repetitive nature of this dream made her think of the supernatural.

Trying to understand the vision, her thoughts repeatedly returned to the two mysterious chests that her father had tried to hide from her. In the dream, the caskets lay on the sandy beach beside the wailing women. Each time before awakening, Clarinda's final sight was of the chests, as if within them were the answers to the mystery of the women, floating head, black-robed warriors, and the colorful pool.

A month ago, having given control of the
Maritina
to Pasquale the last night before the small fleet made shore in Constantinople, Clarinda was wondering how she might peek into those chests without her father's knowledge. Then she realized with a start that he was standing on the deck beside her.

“I realize that things have been difficult these past couple weeks,
mia figlia
,
” Angelo said without preamble.

He leaned forward on the railing of the deck, sharing her view of the moon. “And things are going to get worse once we reach Constantinople. Forget about our plans for taking the
Viator
to Antioch, or even splitting up the fleet. It won't work.”

“
Padre
,
qual è il problema
? Can't you tell me?”

“I've made a mistake, Clarinda. I need to somehow make amends before all is lost.”

“Before all is lost? Do you mean these shipments, or everything?”

“Everything, I think. They'll have it no other way if they don't get what they want.”

“Who? Our creditors?” Clarinda pressed. “But, we're fine. We can pay the crew, and even divert part of our profits to do maintenance work at the glass factory over the summer. Madre would have loved that, and you'll enjoy getting off the ship for a while. I spoke with Zio Verrocchio. He said he's spoken with the Genoese, that they've extended the loans so we'll make it to end of the season —”

“God, Verrocchio!” Her father groaned. “I feel as if my bad luck began with… . Ah, no, that's not charitable. Would that he hadn't come back two years ago. Clarinda, your uncle Verrocchio...he talks as if he knows everything, but he doesn't know about certain things. Things I've agreed to.”

Clarinda smiled. “Come, now,
Padre
— you can't be mysterious. Not around me. What have you done that's so bad? It can't be smuggling. There aren't many places to hide things on this ship, especially since I oversaw the lading of inventory. We've got everything listed on the manifest. I mean, except for the precious items and those crates in your cabin. The amber and silver from Milan are a separate cargo, correct?”

“
Sì
,
Clare, but —”

She didn't like the look on his face, so she kept speaking, for some reason apprehensive about what he was about to tell her. “And the Egyptian fritware, the spices...even those amber pieces, they're going to be taken care of by Pasquale. He's promised that some traders in Constantinople can get them to the Baltic Sea by next summer —”