The Hermetica of Elysium (Elysium Texts Series) (12 page)

Nadira sighed. This was the same miserable decision her mother must have made so many years ago. From what she had overheard at the meal, the road ahead would be even more perilous. She wiped at the tears that squeezed from her eyes. How did this happen? Last month her only distress came from avoiding the stable boys in the evenings. Her fear of the Black Friars might merely have been like a child’s fear of the dark.
This is real. I
may not live through the week.

Running would be easy enough. There was no guard at Beniste’s door. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. Would they try to find her? Would some tradesman turn her in? None of the prospects pleased her overmuch. She rubbed her chin. She knew she did not want to go with Montrose and his companions. Wherever they were going. Whenever they were leaving. She sat down on the stone steps that led into the back of the house and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head.

Nadira heard her name called from above. She glanced up without moving. She did not want to talk to anyone. She did not want to wash anything or fetch anything or even read anything. She pulled the cloak tighter about her shoulders. After a short while she heard the heavy sound of footsteps in the house behind her.
He has found me.

The sounds stopped and the door opened. A pair of scuffed and patched brown boots appeared directly before her. She stared at the thick leather, at the creases and cracks that wove in and out from the soles. The toes and heels still held bits of dirt and mud from the graveyard and smelled musty. She swallowed hard, keeping her stomach steady. Stubbornly she kept her eyes on the ground. While she could not feign sleep, she could, in fact, be obstinate.

“Nadira.” Montrose spoke softly as if he were calming his horse. She did not respond, but turned her face to the wall. She heard her name again. “Nadira. We leave day after tomorrow. If you want to bathe you must do so as soon as you can. I need you to gather supplies. Beniste has generously offered to give us whatever we need, at least for the next few days. Take what you want from his garden and his larder.”

“I’m not going,” she murmured. There was a frosty silence. She did not move.

“You are.” The cold words came down like stones rolling from a great height.

“I’m not.” She shrugged.

A pair of knees joined the boots with a creak and groan as Montrose lowered himself to a squat before her. He smelled like a cellar after a hard rain. Her nostrils twitched.

“Nadira,” he said softly again.

“Go away. I will not go with you.”

“You gave your word.”

“I did not.”

The horse-calming tones were gone. Montrose growled, “You did! On the road from Barcelona, you did!” His breath was heavy; she could hear the rasp as he inhaled. Nadira imagined his face was quite red with fury as well, but she resisted the temptation to prove it to herself by looking at him.

With a twist of her wrists, she flipped the hood of her cloak so it covered her eyes. “You swore not to harm me,” she said, “and to take me home when you were finished with me. I did not swear an oath, and I have now changed my mind.” He reached out and grabbed the hood of the cloak, yanking it back from her head. Nadira quickly turned her face away from him.

He hissed at her, “What do you want, Nadira. Tell me, I will get it for you. Do you want money?” He shook the purse hanging from his belt. The coins jingled convincingly. “What do you want?” he insisted furiously.

She snapped the heavy wool back over her head. “I don’t want your money!” Her shout was ineffective, muffled by the cloak. “I want to go home.”

“You do not have a home, you fool.” Montrose sighed. His big hand reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Sofir won’t take you back. Not after you have been gone a fortnight with six men. He will not take you back. He will not want to give back the purse I left with him. You cannot go home. It will never be the same, Nadira. Things have changed for you. You can never go back to the life you had before.”

She heard the truth in his words, wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“Come now. This is bad, but it is over.” The horse-calming tones were back. “We will have fresh horses. No more walking. I know you are afraid, but...”

He is weary,
Nadira thought.
He is weary and
I am afraid
. She breathed in deeply; the scent of his wet leather was now strangely comforting. She pulled the cloak back from her face and looked up at him with red eyes.

“Why? Why should I go? I will be killed, or worse. Why?” Her fists balled up in the wool. The more she thought, the less she wanted to continue. She felt desperation around the edges of her mind. If she did not go with Montrose what would she do?
I cannot go; I cannot stay; I cannot
go; I cannot stay.
The words whirled around inside her head. Her breath came faster, yet at the same time her chest tightened as if barrel hoops were squeezing her. The sky began to spin. She felt her wits leaving her. Lights flashed before her eyes, whirling dots of white and red.

She became aware of the scraping of rough calluses across her palms. The discomfort reached through the thick fog of her mind. She pulled her hands away and opened her eyes. She was lying on her back on a bed staring up at the rafters.
I must
have fainted
.
He must have carried me up the stairs
to our room.
She thought about the pain that surely cost him.

“Nadira.” She turned her head toward the sound. Montrose was sitting next to her, his face sallow in the orange light from the sunset that crept through the narrow window. “Nadira, can you hear me?” he asked.

Nadira did not answer. She still felt slightly dizzy. Instead, she searched Montrose’s face. His eyes were tired, his mouth thin and tight. He seemed honestly concerned. A wave of remorse rolled over her.

“I can hear you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m behaving like a child.”

She was surprised to hear Montrose laugh. The sound was more like a choking grunt than a real laugh, but his eyes brightened and he flashed his teeth.

“You are a child. What, you are sixteen? Fifteen?”

“Near twenty, my lord. Old enough to know better.”

Montrose’s smile faded. “Twenty? Good God.”

He looked uncomfortable. The oppressive atmosphere closed in around them again. The brief moment of levity faded quickly, dissipated by the reality of the situation.
I really don’t have a choice.

She sat up, and Montrose did not prevent her from swinging her feet over the edge of the bed. She leaned against the wall. Her stomach hurt. Shame filled her with resignation. She realized with some dismay that she was a coward.

“I will go with you, my lord,” she whispered, though everything inside her rebelled at the thought.

Montrose did not look at her as she had expected. He sat there, head bowed with his hands dangling between his knees and he sighed again. Nadira looked down on his shoulders as he sat hunched beside her, the leather of his vest stretched taut across his wide back. She could see how worn and patched it was. There were some unmended cuts, some water stains.
His
clothing is like a book
, she thought
. Every chapter is
written in wear and tear
. Even now, she could see where the recent battle on the mountain had left a new slice in the leather. His own blood had left spatter stains that had not been rinsed out.

Finally he turned his head to look at her sideways. The eyes were hard and determined. The lines on his forehead and around his mouth had not appeared so prominent last week. Already there were gray streaks at his temple over his ears among the black strands in his hair, yet he could not be much over thirty if he had even reached that age. Clothing can be discarded, but the enduring march of time was recorded in his face and each new experience changed the look in his eyes. Those blue eyes narrowed now as he studied her face in turn.

“Aye, and will you stay the course? Will you go to the monastery and read for me? Will you change your mind again? Must we have this same wretched conversation every time…” he turned away and his fist came down on his knee completing the sentence silently.

Nadira looked away. She stared at the wood beams on the ceiling, then on the shutters swinging open against the last of the day. An icy draft ruffled the blanket around her feet. She heard the faint sounds from the yard outside and her own troubled breath. She was afraid to look back at him, but she forced herself. A quick glance told her that his eyes were fixed on her, the blue depths intense, his jaw set hard. She could not meet his gaze, but dropped her eyes at once.

He spoke to her quietly, in an even and measured tone that spoke to her of his resolve. “You must swear to me this time,” he said. “You must swear to me by your God. I must hear your oath and you must give me a token of your faith to me. Once and for all time we must get this understood between us.”

She thought about Barcelona. Would she want to go back? A few moments ago that was all she wanted. Would she grow old there, weaving, sewing, and pushing acrid laundry around a tub? What was before her? Fear? Death? Hunger? How long until the robed figures stopped at Sofir’s fine house? How long before even his generous bribes could no longer keep them from coveting his property?

The truth was that there was no safe place for her to go. Even her wish to go home to Marrakech was a foolish little-girl fantasy. Her uncles would not welcome her, not delivered to them, as she would be, by a party of infidel soldiers. They would pull out their great curved blades and....
I am an abomination
to them.
Self-pity threatened to engulf her again with a tide of tears. Nadira fought it back, angry with herself. Montrose obviously needed her. Sofir needed her in Barcelona, yet it was not the same. Anyone could bake bread or stir the laundry.
Sofir can even do his own
correspondence or find another clerk to do his figures.

Nadira realized she liked being needed. It felt good to know that her welfare was important to others; that someone must entreat her to benefit from her skills. There was a difference now. A change from being ordered, directed, and forced to being cajoled and humored. She put her hand to her eyes as she entertained a thought she had not permitted herself, the thought that had burned her mind on the day of her mother’s death. A thought she had pushed away every day, refusing to allow it to grow in her heart, paining her with its hopelessness. She pulled it forward now, stood it before her, and linked it to this man Montrose.
I might not always
be a slave.

Her hand came down revealing her eyes to him. But he still studied his boots. She touched his arm. “I will swear to you, but I demand an oath in return.”

“Done.”

“You haven’t heard it yet!”

“Demand away, girl. If I have it in me it is yours.” He slowly came to his feet, favoring his right side. He drew his sword with effort. She remembered with a twinge how easily he had pulled it from its scabbard just a few days ago. He planted the tip in the space between the planks of the floor with a solid thump then leaned painfully on the hilt. She fixed her eyes on the cold blade. The sword could not lie, nor betray, nor deceive. She looked in his steely eyes. They had sharpened in intensity. He was waiting for her demands.

Nadira took a deep breath. “You must free me. I must no longer be a slave to anyone.” There were many honest women living independently in the cities. She could become a brewster, a spinster, a weaver, a midwife. She had dealings with such women herself.

He nodded. “Easy enough. Let us swear.”

Nadira slid off the bed to her feet. “I swear to follow you where you go, to where you take me. I will do as you say, obey your commands. I swear to honor you until you release me. All this I swear on my mother, let her hear my vow. Let me not join with her upon my death should I betray my words.” She nodded at Montrose to indicate that she had finished.

Montrose knelt before his sword. He grasped the hilt between his hands and interlaced his fingers. “I swear to protect this woman with my life. To feed her and keep her, free her and take her to wherever she asks when my task is finished. All this I swear.” He stood and reached out to her.

Nadira drew back. “Will you not call upon your god?” she asked.

“You did not.”

“I have no god. I swore on my mother, dearer to me than any deity. You must swear to something other than your life.”

Montrose’s face darkened. “Will we quarrel about the very oaths we take? Is there no end to your perverse….” he dropped off in frustration, turned his head and cursed soundlessly, squeezing the hilt of his sword until the knuckles turned white.

“See here,” his voice was slow and deep, fighting exasperation. He looked directly into her eyes. “See here, I will swear. You swore on your mother, I will swear on my brother, now in the grave not even a fortnight.” He started again, “I swear to protect this woman with my life, to feed her, keep her, and at the end of my task free her and carry her to wherever she asks. All this I swear on…my brother, Richard Longmoor. So, be it. Shall I break my vow, let me forever burn in the fires of hell with Satan as my...” The door burst open with a bang and Garreth filled the room. “…tormentor.”