Rogue Sword Read Online Free PDF Page A

around so it hung from the left shoulder and concealed the sword he bore in that hand. Sidestepping Gasparo Reni, who sat shuddering with unpracticed sobs, he moved down a street opposite to the approaching watchmen. Bodies fetid with sweat and garlic resisted him, as if he breasted a river. Finally he broke free, turned a corner, and stopped to catch his breath.
    A slender form in a hooded cloak paused beside him. He realized with astonishment and some dismay that the slave girl had followed. And then . . . why not, he thought, the headiness of victory still upon him. He took her hand. It felt soft, trembling a little but closing fingers tightly around his own. “Come,” he muttered. “This way. I don’t know these alleys, but I’d hazard this is our general direction.”
    They groped through lanes which became pitchy as night approached. Finally they stumbled into a courtyard with enough starlight to show heaped trash and low buildings. By standing precariously on two barrels, Lucas was able to chin himself onto a roof. There he, looked across a city turning from black to gray and white, as the moon rose out of Asia. From the North Star and the gleam of water, he got his bearings. As he sprang down again, the girl huddled close to him. “Rhomaizeis?” he asked. When there was no response, he inquired if she spoke Venetian, then Genoese.
    “A little, Messer,” she said to that. Her voice was low and pleasant to hear.
    Lucas was relieved. The two patois were not so different that he could not be fluent in both, even after a lapse of years. He continued merrily, humming a bawdy French chanson. With a sword in his hand and a woman at his side, he felt able to deal with any number of robbers whom the noise might attract.
    But there was no incident. He got lost a few times, in a tangle of streets two thousand years old, but after an hour they reached his hostel. Avoiding the walled quarter which the Venetians of Constantinople inhabited, he had found a cheap place in the slums of the Phanar district. There he passed himself off as a sailor from the Morea: admittedly under a Frankish overlord, but nonetheless a Greek. Venetians were so hated here that he would probably have been murdered if the truth were known. They had brought about the sack of the city, a hundred years ago, and the establishment of that Latin monarchy which it had taken a lifetime to overthrow. Nor had their subsequent behavior endeared them to the Empire. Only four years back, the fleet of Giustiniani had come harrying to extract an indemnity. The Genoese showed equal arrogance, having even turned Galata across the Horn into a fortified city of their own; but they remained Byzantine allies, anyway.
    The inn was a mean building, crouched under the mountainous ancient wall of Constantine, but the moon stood high now and somehow gave it beauty. A few oarsmen were drinking by firelight in the common room. Lucas stopped to borrow a lamp and buy a crock of wine from the landlord, then went on to his chamber with the girl. A good-natured cheer followed him.
    He closed the door behind them. The room was a mere cubicle, with cracked plaster and moldy straw on the floor. From the Cathayans Lucas had learned that it was not unhealthy to sleep with open windows. He put the lamp on a shelf, threw back the shutter and let in the moonlit air.
    Only then did he look at the girl. She had drawn her cloak tight and she shivered as they came in. Now her back straightened. With a movement of decision, she flung off the garment.
    His lips formed a soundless whistle.
    She was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, but tall. Later she would gain the fullest form of womanhood; as yet she was slender in waist and flanks, long in the legs, her white neck almost childlike. But the small breasts rose firmly upward, lifting the fabric of a plain linen gown. Her face was oval, with a pert nose and a mouth with gentle curves. Under arched brows, her eyes seemed enormous, silver-blue