"Yarbro,.Chelsea.Quinn.-.Olivia.02.-.Crusader's.Torch.(V1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

"And in other places as well," said Olivia. "For me, once I step off dry land, it is always the same."
"You will change your mind." He said it so confidently that Olivia could not restrain her laughter.
"Very well, let me summon my bearers and you can show me what makes your ship superior to all the others I have been on." As she said it, she knew she was behaving badly, but it did not bother her. She went to the door and called for Alfaze to ready her palinquin. "They will need a short time to prepare, but once they are ready, we will depart for the wharves."
Dar chuckled. "Niklos warned me you might do something of the sort. He takes great pride in how outrageous you can be."
"I know," said Olivia serenely. She missed Niklos so much; hearing Ithuriel Dar speak of him was at once soothing and hurtful. "Was he well?"
"He was the last I saw of him, but Roma is a city of miasmas in the summer. You know what the fevers can do in the heat of the year." He shook his head. "Niklos told me that it was not always so, that in the time of the Caesars there was less illness, and the wells were pure. They always tell such tales about the past, don't they? It was always better when no one can remember it. My mother used to say that milk never curdled when Moses was alive."
"Perhaps Roma was a better city then," Olivia suggested as she listened for the signal from Alfaze.
"How could that be?" Dar argued, enjoying himself tremendously. "How could the past have been so much better than what we have now? You can see that some of the buildings once had marble fronts, but that means little."
"If it were simply a question of marble fronts, I would agree," said Olivia, sounding more wistful than she realized.
"Still, if it's your home, it's doubtless preferable to Tyre." He looked up sharply as a bell sounded.
"My palinquin is ready," Olivia explained. "Come with me and my bearers will take me with you." As she started toward the side of her house, she paused to take a small misericordie from its rack on the wall; she tucked the thin dagger in the long folds of her girdle and stepped out of the door.
"We are ready," Alfaze said in his soft voice. "Where are we to carry you, mistress?"
"To wherever this bonsier tells you; somewhere at the wharves." She started to pull her curtains closed, then stopped. "Who is left to watch the doors and guard the house for me?"
"Saniel and Fedyah," Alfaze told her. "And three kitchen slaves."
"That will do for a short time," Olivia said, hoping that whatever Dar offered would be acceptable to the Bourgesses; she was aching to leave. Once she closed the curtains, her bearers lifted her and followed Ithuriel Dar through the crowded streets to the wharves.
At the largest of these, an usciere was unloading its living cargo; knights, equerries, and esquires stood to receive the horses as they were led out, edgy and restless after their long passage in stalls belowdecks. Templars, Hospitalers, and even two men in the yellow cote of the Knights Hospitalers of Saint Lazarus were claiming their precious animals.
"I don't carry horses on my shipЧit isn't made for it. Horses belong in uscieres, and that's how it ought to be." said Dar as he watched one of the Templars alternately bully and coax a dark gray destrier down the reinforced rear gangplank. "Ah," said Dar. "Two overЧyou can see there is a Pisan ship. It has a square and a latin sail, and twelve oars."
Olivia, opening her curtains enough to look out, finally saw the ship Dar had indicated. "Is yours like that?"
"That's a tarida; the Ondas del' Albor is a tarida bastarda, with more sail and longer." He braced his hands on his hips. "And my ship is more beautiful."
"I am certain it is," said Olivia, respecting Dar's pride.
"There are two latin sails on the Ondas del' Albor." His expression approached smugness. "Aside from a panfilo or a fustaЧand those are armed warships, mindЧnot even the bergantino is faster. Of course, a saettia is fastest, but there's no room for any cargo on one. I started out with a baleniero, butЧ"
"Bonsier Dar," Olivia interrupted, "I am sure everything you tell me is true, but I have no great interest in ships. I wish only to get over the water as quickly as is safe, and to have my goods and myself returned to Roma."
Dar sighed and turned away from the excitement on the wharves. "You do not see the beauty in all this, good widow?"
"No, Bonsier, I do not," Olivia said, and then modified her words. "If I did not become ill when traveling by water, doubtless I would come to love it in time."
Dar raised his hand to shade his eyes. "There is another ship, at the edge of the sea; it is bound for this port, I think. It carries blazoned sails."
"How can you tell?" Olivia squinted at the horizon and saw nothing.
"My eyes are farseeing, which for others could be an affliction, but is to my advantage." He favored her with a sidelong glance. "Also, when I was a child, my father taught me to look this way, from the tail of the eye, in order to see things at a great distance."
"How can you be certain that's a ship? What if it is only a cloud?" asked Olivia, curious about his answer.
"A man who has been at sea for as long as I have knows the difference between a ship and a cloud." He folded his arms over his chest and looked directly at her. "And I know the sails are blazoned because I can see that something is painted on the sails. Surely they are blazoned. Perhaps it is one of the ships of Barbarossa. They say he is bringing an army to recapture Jerusalem."
Olivia kept her voice level, but it cost her an effort. "I have heard something of this as well, Bonsier Dar. The Pope is eager for a new Crusade."
"True enough, true enough," sighed Dar. "Everyone's after poor Jerusalem, but they try to keep us out, whose city it is." He stared out to sea. "Yes, it is blazoned; Norman arms, I think, from Sicilia."
"I won't argue with you, Bonsier Dar." She was relieved that he had changed the subject. "You are, as you have said yourself, the one who has been at sea, and I have already confessed myЕ dislike for traveling over water." She said it lightly, refusing to be drawn into an argument. "I am pleased you are so capable and vigilant."
Dar was not mollified by this. "Save your banter, good widow. I will not be challenged on my skills and my knowledge, least of all by a seasick woman."
"I do not challenge you," she said. "I am curious, in part because I am afraid."
"You have no reason to be. With me, you are as safe as a baby in its cradle." He rocked back on his heels and stared at her, his face a network of creases that revealed his every thought and emotion. "I am not sure you trust me."
"I don't," she admitted without heat. "Or," she amended, "I do not trust you completely. You would not think much of me if I did." This last shrewd touch restored her to Dar's good opinion.
"True enough," he said, showing very white, even teeth. "And who is to blame me for that?"
"Who is to blame me?" she countered, waiting to see his response.
"Perhaps," he said speculatively, regarding her with increased interest, "it will not be such a tragedy to have you aboard my ship, after all. You have a good wit. It is a thing I admire in women; wit." He started to stroll along the wharves, paying almost no attention to Olivia's bearers as they struggled to keep up with him in the press of the dockside crowd. "Don't dawdle," he called out to the bearers as they lagged behind.
"For mercy's sake," Olivia replied, "slow down." She cursed the laws of Tyre that required she travel concealed. It was as bad as Constantinople, she thought, which was one of the worst observations she could make of a place. "If my slaves try to go faster, they'll drop me."
"Nonsense," Dar shouted back.
Suddenly one of the horses being unloaded from the usciere broke away from the slaves attempting to lead him. He reared, plunged, whinnied in angry panic, then broke free, rushing headlong down the gangplank into the crowd.
People scattered; screams and shouts cut through the buzz of talk. As the horse grew more terrified, he darted wildly, pawing the air, striking out, trying to find an opening.
"What on earthЧ?" Olivia demanded as Alfaze lurched, and then the palinquin dropped to the planks of the wharf. As she tried to crawl from the palinquin, Olivia heard one of her bearers shriek, and the hard, implacable sound of hooves pounding on flesh and bone.
"Widow!" Dar shouted from some little distance. "Guard yourself!"
The horse was a big knight's stallion, taller than any of the horses bred in the Holy Land, and heavier of body, a destrier for an armored man to ride in battle. His sorrel coat was sweat-dark and flecked with foam, and the white mane was a long, tangled mat. He was panting with fear.
"Have a care!" bellowed someone in the crowd.
The hooves came down again, but this time Olivia had been able to extricate herself from the curtains and was scrambling to her feet as the horse reared over her. It took all her will to resist the urge to run from the animal. She had a few seconds to act, to save herself from the crushing blows.
She stepped to the horse's side and reached for a handful of mane, holding as the horse pulled; as he reached his full height, Olivia tugged sharply on the mane, dragging the horse sideways and back until, with a scream, the horse fell on his side, legs thrashing. Olivia flung herself on the neck and wrapped her arms over his head, pinning him to the tarred planks of the wharf.
The frenzy around her stopped almost at once. Two of the slaves who had been chasing the horse came running up to Olivia, one of them marked with fresh bruises and cuts. The rest of the crowd gathered around, many expressing amazement that a woman should have brought such a brute under control.