Manfred sat back and raised his big hands in a pacific gesture. 'I'm all decorum, I swear. I haven't forgotten the last time! Neither have my ribs. Has Sachs got wind of your last little visit and the friendly little chat you had with the Madame and her bouncers?'
'Jesu. I hope to God not.' Erik crossed himself. 'Let me tell you about what he wants me to do.'
* * *
By the time he'd finished, Manfred wasn't laughing. He wasn't even grinning. 'I suppose they'll be waiting by the water-door for the ruckus. This smells to the heavens, Erik! That idiot Sachs will get you killed--and I wouldn't doubt that's really what he wants. Why in the hell no sword and no armor?'
Erik pulled a wry face. 'I suppose they don't want the bouncers too alarmed and deciding not to interfere. I'm supposed to create a disturbance.'
Manfred had the grace to look shamefaced. 'I think they're going to be a little alarmed just to see your face.'
'Thanks to you, yes,' replied Erik grimly.
Manfred stood up slowly. 'True enough. Are you going anywhere in the next while?'
Erik shook his head. 'Not until I leave smelling of wine, shortly after Compline.'
Manfred pursed his lips. 'That gives us plenty of time.' The knight-squire headed for the door. 'Wait here. That Pellmann is nowhere about, is he?'
Erik raised his eyes to heaven and shook his head. 'When he doesn't have to be? Not likely.'
Manfred nodded, and walked out and away up the passage. He could walk fast and quietly for such a big man.
A short while later he was back, with a bag and an oilcloth roll. He closed the door and bolted it before tossing the bag onto the bed. It clinked. Erik raised an eyebrow.
Manfred unrolled his oilcloth onto to the table and revealed a set of tools that would have done any torturer from Damascus to Vinland proud. 'Get out of those clothes. If you've got a close-fitting quilted shirt, put it on. If you don't, we'll have to get you one. We'll need to fit this thing. It's too small for me these days, but likely it'll be still too big for you.'
Erik looked doubtful. 'What is it?'
Manfred stepped over to the bag on the bed. He hauled out a shirt of tiny chain links. They gleamed with an odd black pearly sheen. 'Koboldwerk. My uncle had me wear it at court. Somebody must have washed it because it's shrunk.'
Erik snorted. 'Particularly across the belly.'
It was an unfair observation. Manfred was as square as a foundation block, but he was also solid muscle. He'd been a great deal softer before Erik had started on him. He trained with Manfred from an hour before dawn until Lauds every single day. Then they'd put in at least an hour on the pells. Then they'd join the knights for morning drill.
To give the Breton squire his due, nowadays Manfred gave the training his heart and soul. At first, Erik used to have to haul him out of bed. But lately it was getting to be the other way around, despite the fact that Manfred had managed to explore the wilder aspects of Venice's nights quite successfully. Also, he'd noticed how the squire had put on inches, particularly across the shoulders, in the months they'd been together. The boy was finishing his growing, and it certainly wasn't around the waistline.
Erik suspected that Manfred had been genuinely shocked to discover how much more capable his Icelandic 'keeper' was than he, when it came to any kind of extended fighting. Manfred's incredible strength and athletic ability had not been matched by endurance--leaving aside the fact that he had little of Erik's actual combat experience and the brutal skills the Icelander had learned in the island's savage clan feuds as well as frontier skirmishes in Vinland.
One thing Erik had come to realize about his charge. For all of Manfred's roustabout ways, the young scion of the imperial family was quite capable of learning something when he put his mind to it. And, if it accomplished nothing else, the incident in the church seemed to have finally brought a certain amount of seriousness to Manfred's outlook on things. The big young man had brooded for days afterward, obviously ashamed of his initial reaction to Erik's defiance of Sachs.
Erik suppressed a snort. Not that Manfred's new-found solemnity went all that deep. If Abbot Sachs kept the Knights here much longer, he didn't doubt that Manfred would even learn to speak the local dialect. Well enough, at least, to ask directions to any location in Venice. He'd already learned how to find the taverns and brothels.
Manfred slapped his stomach. 'It's the wine,' he said mournfully. 'I need more.'
