The Necromancer's Grimoire (19 page)

Thedra squeezed her arm. “All can see what you do not. But I will refrain from speaking of him since it seems to trouble you. Especially when you can tell me more of this orange man, Alisdair. You say he may welcome a visit from me this evening?”

Nadira was still annoyed, but eager to change the subject. “He would very definitely be pleased by a visit, as you say. Can you, as you say, ‘visit' whomever you please?” She turned to Thedra, puzzled. “You have the freedom to enjoy your master's guests?”

Thedra gave a little sigh with her smile. “I wouldn't call it ‘freedom'. He gets the best prices for his horses with no haggling.” She gave Nadira an impish grin. “My father warned him what he was in for when he took me across the Dardanelles. Do you think he wonders where I learned my skills? He knows I did not learn them from him or from his dried-up wife. He is satisfied with the bargain he made with my father.”

Nadira was speechless.

Thedra laughed at her. “So tell me. If I visited him, would he turn me away?”

“He may invite you in. However, he may insult you by suggesting you are a woman of the streets. From what I understand he does not have a high opinion of the modesty of the women in Constantinople, though he has a great appreciation for them.”

“Probably for good reason.” Thedra put her head to Nadira's so her laugh would be muffled. “We cosmopolitan women appreciate a fine man when we see one.”

“He is a fine man,” Nadira agreed, but an edge to her voice made Thedra turn from the screen.

“What? Is there something wrong with him?”

“Oh. No, no,” she assured her friend. “I am thinking sad thoughts…”

“Tell me.”

Nadira sighed. “He has lost his family. A wife and three little children…” Nadira paused, thinking of such a loss. “Many years ago. Ten maybe. Plague.”

Thedra's eyes were bright behind her scarf and her merriness seemed to fade away. “Oh, dear.”

“But it is wrong of me to put such a pall over the afternoon,” Nadira said. “I am sorry. We were having such fun.”

Thedra smiled a sad smile. “Then let it pass like a cloud over the sun on a summer's day. Look.” She nodded toward the men. The scrubbing was over; bowls of water were being tossed over their heads and shoulders. Rivulets of sudsing water rolled down the valleys and over the mounds of their muscles. Thedra took in a deep breath. “Lovely,” she sighed. “Soon they will stand and enter the pool.”

Nadira tightened the scarf around her mouth, ready for that. “Yes.”

The men were laughing at some remark DiMarco had made as they turned and made their way to the pool. The women went silent, watching.

Finally Thedra breathed, “Oh my. I am very definitely going to visit your Scotsman. He shares a room with the big yellow one?”

Nadira nodded absently, her eyes on Montrose as he entered the pool. He slowly descended the stone steps into the shimmering water. “Yes.”

“Do you have any advice? I have not visited a
frenki
man from the north before. What do they like?”

Nadira's eyes went wide. “What?”

Thedra seemed to find it difficult to take her eyes from the soaking men, but she tore them away to stare at her. “Nadira. Are you telling me that you have traveled months with these men and none have touched you? Have you not tried each one, like the flavors of shaved ice?”

Nadira blushed into her veil. “No.”

“Not even a little?”

“Thedra, are you telling me you think I am their harlot?”

“No. Not their harlot. I am having trouble with the word. There is not a word in Arabic for this. We have one in Turkish. There is definitely one in Greek.”

“You can stop searching for the word. None have taken liberties.”

“But you are the dark one's…does that mean you are his alone? But not his wife?”

Nadira's role as neither wife nor servant nor lover made it difficult to answer. She frowned as she turned to her hostess, “He puts me in this place that is no place at all.”

Thedra nodded slowly. “Forgive me, then, for my impudence. Had I been in your position these men would be too weak to ride their horses. It is not my business. I was merely hoping to get information, one woman to another. A little taste before I eat the whole bowl.” Thedra nodded in the direction of the pool. “I envy you. Your man is a fine man as well. He is like a chariot horse, taking the final turn in the hippodrome, extending himself for the last stretch. That is what I see when I look at him.”

Nadira followed her friend's gaze. Montrose apparently had enough soaking and floating. He waded closer to the edge of the pool, stretching his arms and shoulders.

Thedra nodded to herself. “Dark blue eyes. Like lapis. I had a shepherd with blue eyes once…”

Nadira felt an uncomfortable jealousy. “Alisdair's eyes are blue as well…but lighter… like the sky,” she suggested, pointing to the Scotsman.

Thedra turned from Montrose and focused on Alisdair. “Yes. Lovely. I am thinking I would like to leave now,” she whispered in a throaty voice.

Nadira had turned her eyes back to Montrose, but managed to whisper back, “Why?”

“Because the spotted one is leaving.”

“Alisdair. His name is Alisdair.”

“Yes, yes. It is not his name that interests me.” Thedra drew in her breath in a ragged way that told Nadira what interested her. “He is magnificent. That is the word for him. A fine, fine word.” She wrapped her veil around her and slid from behind the screen and onto the hidden path. “Do not wait for me,” she hissed over her shoulder as she disappeared.

Nadira sighed. Montrose had acknowledged Alisdair's departure with a slight wave of his hand. He leaned against the side of the pool not three paces from Nadira, flicking the surface of the water in an absent way. He did not seem to be enjoying the bath as much as the other men who now filled the hall with their echoing greetings. Some lay on low slabs, ready for the masseuses. Others were scrubbed by servants. Montrose seemed to be waiting for the others to finish.

Nadira sought out William, still wandering the edge of the room appearing to admire the decorative tile. Corbett was in the process of being rubbed down. She craned her neck and located Calvin and DiMarco in the water. If Montrose had not been so close she might have been bored. The sight of one naked man is very exciting. The sight of thirty weakens the effect. She smiled to herself.
I have gone from naïve to jaded in the space of a few minutes.

Montrose echoed her sigh, bringing her attention back to him. She smiled to herself. He leaned an elbow on the edge of the pool, the rest of him out of sight below the water.

“Robert,” she called to him in a low voice.

He startled, stood up straight and looked around. Water dripped from his hair and little beads of it stood out on the hairs of his chest and arms. She watched his muscles bunch as he readied himself to leap from the pool. She called again.

“It is I, Nadira, behind this screen.”

He came out of the water in a graceful arc, the water sheeting from him and pooling at his feet. He was at the screen in two strides. The blue eyes were amused, peering through the wooden holes.

“You little minx. This was Thedra's idea, was it not?” he whispered.

“You are correct.

“Where is she now?” He turned his head to the left and right as if he expected to see her weaving in and about among the naked men.

“She is on the hunt,” Nadira laughed quietly. “I was quickly abandoned.”

“I pity her prey.” Montrose rubbed his chin. “Who is the unlucky man?”

“Of course it is Alisdair. She is fascinated by his color.” Nadira could not resist a giggle. “She will turn him inside out.”

His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I can't wait to see him tomorrow then. But you will be discovered if I stand here much longer.”

“I can creep back the way I came, but will be exposed where the juncture meets the doorway. I cannot leave until all these men are gone.”

He turned sideways and leaned against the screen to appear as though he were lounging. “I can meet you there and get you through the doorway,” he said.

“How?”

“Cover your face with your scarf. You become a nameless, faceless woman. There are many here.” He nodded towards the other side of the pool. “Those doorways open into smaller chambers each with a lovely denizen waiting for a few coins.”

“Oh.” Nadira wrapped her veil around her face, leaving only her wide eyes above the blue cloth. “Oh.”

He smiled at her discomfiture, but did not wait for her. He began to walk to the doorway and she had to scramble to keep up with him. They met where the hidden path joined the flagstone walkway. He took her elbow and ushered her before him. Nadira could not resist a glance at his naked body before she was steered into the long corridor that lead to the bright street. It was dark and cool in the hallway. A small group of men appeared in the hall on their way to the baths. He turned to her and pressed her to the wall. His big hand pulled down her veil and he bent to kiss her, hiding her from them as they walked by, laughing and speaking in a strange language. When they had passed, Montrose straightened.

“I stand here, naked to the world, exposing my bare arse to merchants from Vienna, all because Thedra thought it would be a great lark to take you to the baths.”

She looked up at him coyly. “I have many veils. One would wrap your loins quite nicely,” she teased, pulling a veil from around her waist. “This blue one matches your eyes.”

The blue eyes danced with humor. “Let me get dressed and I will take you back to your room.”

Her face fell. “I am always being taken back to my room.”

His eyes softened. “You are right. Perhaps I can take you to the souq instead. Would you like to go shopping?”

Her own eyes lit up. “Oh yes.”

Later that night, after Nadira had enjoyed an afternoon in Istanbul's bazaars, her door opened so forcefully it banged against the wall. Nadira sat up, alarmed, the blanket to her chin. “What is it?”

The men entered the room with candles, bringing the flickering light and casting sharp shadows along the walls. All of them were there. They flung open the casement windows and kicked the furniture around. “What?” She repeated.

“Do you have the
Hermetica
?” She couldn't tell who spoke. All of them seemed to be talking at once.

“No. I do not,” she answered. She got up and stood near the door because Calvin had started to rummage through her blankets. She wrapped a shawl around her and slid her feet into her slippers.

“She would not lie,” someone said.

“She doesn't have it.”

“It is not here.”

“Damn it.”

“Look under the bed.” The bed was lifted like kindling and moved aside. The table and the chest were moved, the candles thrust into the corners.

“It's gone,” Montrose said to her grimly. “Corbett went to retrieve it from his chest when we returned, and it was gone.”

“I do not have it,” she repeated.

“I told him you would not.”

A scream echoed in from the corridor and froze each man in place. They broke at the same time through her doorway and into the corridor, running toward the sound, the candles extinguished in their haste. Nadira dropped her shawl and ran after them. She lost her slippers in her effort to keep up. The darkness chased them down the stone halls.

Curious heads poked out from doors along the way and Nadira found she was struggling to keep them in sight. After a few moments they had all left her behind, and she was alone, running along the corridor from lamplight to lamplight, following the sounds of their footsteps and the echoes of their distant shouts. The scream came again, louder this time. She made a sharp turn to the left and stopped, panting. No footsteps, no light. She heard the sounds of doors opening and closing and sleepy voices in many languages asking what was wrong, and if there was a fire. Now the sound of an agonized wail reached her ears and she began her chase again. She saw the men ahead of her, clustered around a doorway. She reached them, gasping, and pushed her way under their arms and past their sweating bodies into the room.

William lay on the floor stones, rolling back and forth and weeping with the
Hermetica
clutched to his chest. Corbett bent over him, but did not touch him. When she approached, Corbett looked down at her with stricken eyes. Montrose put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from kneeling at William's side. The friar mumbled and sobbed, crying out every few moments with a pitiful wail, “Oh God, Oh God.”

“Wait,” Corbett said.

Calvin brought in one of the lamps that illuminated the hallways at night. When she could see better, Nadira took in the room. It looked as though a great storm had wrecked a ship inside the small confines. There was not a piece of furniture left that was not reduced to splinters. Clothing lay tossed about, and most alarming were the papers and quills and disemboweled books strewn about the floor. Ink spattered like blood against the walls, brutal evidence of the murder of the books.

Alisdair swallowed. “Good God,” he said.

“Let me go to him,” Nadira tried to shake off Montrose's hand.

Corbett was trembling so hard Garreth put a hand out to steady him. He pointed to the
Hermetica
. “All right, you take it from him.”

When Montrose released her shoulder she knelt at William's side, took the book in one hand and tried to pull it slowly from his grip. He cried out again and tried to roll up with the
Hermetica
pressed against his middle. She did not release her hold on the cover. Calvin, still the keeper of the light, backed against the door and closed it against the crowd of curious faces in the hall.