money on you? They won’t take my florins.”
“No, we’re not betting here. Come on, let’s go back.” Lorenzo touched his arm.
“Get off me.” Dante jerked his arm away, lost his balance on the icy cobblestones, and crashed into the three men on his right. The men roared curses in three languages as they all fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs and coats. Dante was the first on his feet but instead of offering to help the others up, he kicked them and swore back in Italian.
Suddenly half of the spectators around the boxing match had turned their attention to the angry men behind them. They laughed and jeered at the fallen men, particularly at the one who had planted his face in another’s crotch. The three men scrambled up and found themselves being shoved and mocked by the crowd, and Lorenzo saw them turn toward Dante with knives drawn. The Italian did not see them at all as he was trying to worm his way back into the knot of men still watching the boxers.
“No, no, no!” Lorenzo burst into motion only half a step ahead of the raging drunks. He grabbed Dante’s collar and hauled him away from the spectator’s circle. The Italian didn’t even turn to look before he began shouting and trying to throw the hidalgo off. Struggling and stumbling backward, Lorenzo felt the cold chain fence at the edge of the bank digging into the back of his knees and as he tumbled backward he prayed, Dear God, I swear I will do anything humanly possible to glorify your boundless love and grace if only you will refrain from breaking my neck right now.
He crashed onto the hard stone slope with Dante on top of him and they slid together, accelerating down the icy incline to the frozen river. He kicked at the stoneworks frantically to turn around and managed to get his feet halfway round before they hit the Elbro. They slid apart in a light cloud of snow dust across the hard ice.
Lorenzo rolled over and pushed himself up to all fours. Nothing broken. Thank God! Oh right, God. I guess I owe you a holy stone and the renewed faith of an entire nation. Well played, Lord. Well played.
He stood up to see the three men with their knives running across the embankment toward the old stone stair that would bring them safely down to the river. “Dante? Dante!” He grabbed the Italian and pulled him up.
“What in God’s name is wrong with you?” The Italian shoved him away.
“Them!” Lorenzo pointed at the three men rushing down the stairs.
Dante looked. “Oh.” He was up and running in an instant with Lorenzo only a step behind.
The ice underfoot was treacherous but solid and it could be managed by someone used to running on it. Lorenzo had no trouble and Dante seemed to actually be pulling away ahead of him. But behind them, he could see the three men had reached the river and were only a long stone’s throw away.
“The boat! Get to that boat!” Lorenzo yelled.
Dante angled right and leapt into the ice-sailer tied to the nearby dock. He dove to the front of the canoe and began wrenching the frozen ropes off the cleats that held them to the pilings. Lorenzo charged up a moment later and hacked viciously at the ropes with his espada. The lines cracked and broke apart in a burst of icicles and frost. Both men grabbed the mast ropes as high as they could and then dropped with their combined weight to raise the sail. The canvas rose half the height the mast and the easterly wind gusting up the river snapped the sail taut, hurling the boat away from the dock.
The armed men were still closing.
“Again!” Lorenzo and Dante leapt up to grab the line and hauled it down again. The sail cracked against the upper pulley and now the full height of the canvas caught the wind. The two men fell back into the canoe as the ice-sailer skidded and sliced across the Elbro, tipping up to the left at a precarious angle. Dante threw himself to the right and the sailer crashed back down level on its skates.
Lorenzo looked back. The three armed men were slowing, stumbling to a halt, doubling over, and gasping for breath. The hidalgo grinned. “You see? All we needed was to borrow a canoe on skates with a sail and we were perfectly capable of escaping. Nothing complicated about it.”
Dante collapsed into the bottom of the canoe on his back and laughed. “We stole this boat, Quesada, fair and square.”
“No, no.” Lorenzo shook his head. The wind blasted through his unbound hair and he used his free hand to hold up his collar to protect his face. “We’re just taking it out for a bit of exercise, to keep it limber for the owner, and then we’ll leave it tied up a mile or two upriver.”
The icy banks of the Elbro streaked by for several minutes until Lorenzo pointed out the dark silhouette of La Seo against the blue-black clouds roiling beneath the pale stars. They lowered the sail and let the boat glide to a halt beside an empty slip beside several other sailers. Lorenzo tied up the boat as best he could with the remains of the frozen lines and then the two men trudged up another long stone stair to the top of the bank.
When they reached the street again, the hidalgo paused to stretch his back. “Are we done running about for tonight?”
Dante nodded. “Yes. And thanks.” He grinned, but as his eyes strayed to the left his grin faded. “Or maybe not.”
Lorenzo turned and saw at the far end of the road a column of soldiers marching toward them, rifles held at the ready. By the light of the moon, the hidalgo peered into the distant face of the man leading the company and saw the sinister sweep of a black mustache and pointy little beard.
Two dozen armed men. Well, Fabris, that’s one way to skin an eight-hundred pound cat. Unfortunately, it’s not one that will work tonight.
He grabbed Dante’s arm and pointed him toward a dark side street. “Time to disappear.”
Chapter 17. Qhora
She sat in the last seat of a cold wooden pew near the back of the nave, far back in the corner near the entrance to the stairway that led up to their private rooms. For the first few minutes after Lorenzo left, she had waited in the room alone. Then she had ventured out to pace the hall, then to explore the stair, and now to sit and wait.
He’ll be back.
Flipping through the hymn book she found beside her, Qhora realized how far she still had to go in her Espani studies and she set the book aside. The stained glass windows were dark and indiscernible. The scattering of candle light throughout the vast chamber cast only the faintest of amber glows on the great stone columns and on the tiny stone statues hidden in the alcoves along the walls.
He’ll be back. Soon.
The minutes passed slowly. A man in a brown robe paced along the wall at one point, inspecting the candles. She watched him walking along from one pool of light to the next. A lay brother? A choir monk? She couldn’t remember what they were each called, or why, and she didn’t care.
He’ll be ba-
The heavy doors on the far side of the nave banged and the man in the brown robe strode across the wide room to the door. Qhora stood and peered through the gloom, waiting. The door squealed open and a babble of voices echoed across the pews. She couldn’t understand the words, but she knew that Enzo wasn’t one of the men speaking. She stood and slipped back to the doorway that led to the stair.
The voices burst out louder and more insistent as a stampede of boots pounded on the stone floor of the nave. Qhora saw the men pouring through the doors, she saw the rifles in their hands, and she turned and dashed silently up the stairs.
She passed the doors where Alonso, Hector, and Gaspar slept and rapped sharply on the door beyond them. She knocked again. And she knocked again. The door opened suddenly to reveal a squinting, yawning Mazigh pilot and behind her the Eranian girl sitting up in bed.
“What is it?” Taziri whispered.
“Soldiers. Grab your clothes and get out now,” Qhora said. “Take the stairs at the far end. Don’t hide. Get out of the church. They’ll search every room. The priests let them in, and they might tell the soldiers everything.”
Taziri and Shahera scrambled to grab up their discarded clothes and boots.
Qhora lingered in the hall, watching the near stairs. “Faster, faster. You can get dressed downstairs or
