He grinned mirthlessly. 'No. And if I had known you were alive, let alone in Bordeaux, I would never…' He widened his eyes at me, pleading. 'You believe me, brother?' I nodded helplessly. 'Thank God. But that night… I had given that night up for lost. Those drunken, raddled fools I was with made me watch while they stuffed themselves all night and felt up girls. You stumbled upon us, brother. Benno was trying to sleep it off and you woke him up. I didn't know it was you -how could I have? I just didn't want those pigs to hurt anyone.' 'I thought you were dead!' I blurted.
'Well, I knew you must be.' He drew his breath in and with a huge effort reached out his hand and grasped mine. It was cold as stone, but the grip was tight. 'Real enough, though,' he said. Why didn't you tell me, Will?'
'I told the Captain. And he… he said keep it quiet for a while. And I said I must tell my friend Patch. And he said… he said tell him when you are ready. And. Now I am ready.' 'Oh Christ, Will!'
Why don't you forget I came back? Perhaps that would be best.'
'No! That is not what I meant. I was thinking about all this time on the ship… I wasted everything.'
He squeezed my hand. 'Despite your behaviour, brother, I have never been happier than in the past couple of weeks.' Will? I'm so sorry about the things I said. About Anna.'
He tried to laugh, but a spasm passed through him and I saw that blood was seeping from his nose and the corners of his mouth.
'I would have been offended if you had not said them, dear brother. But the princess loves you with all her heart, I'm afraid. I never stood a chance. Do not…' and he gripped my hand again, '… do not hurt her, Patch. Do not let her go. Swear to me.' 'Of course. I swear.' 'Good, good… how strange, Patch, are you still there?' 'Yes, brother.' 'I cannot see you. Shoo that cat away, and cover me up, Patch. Later on, shall we go out, to the Crozier?' 'I would like that, Will.' 'So would I.'
He sighed and lay still. Only then did I notice that Adric had come and knelt at the head of the table. One arm was in a sling, but he had covered his face with the other hand and I knew he was saying the prayers for a departing soul.
We had to leave him lying there. He had not moved again, and his breathing had grown fainter until with one deep gasp he had come to his end. The innkeeper had brought candles, and Adric set one at his head and one at his foot. I stood and stared into his face. His lips had drawn back a little from his teeth, and I wiped the blood away. I told myself it was a smile, but it was not. Thin slivers of white shone beneath his eyelids. I would not leave until at last Gilles and the Captain prised my hand loose.
We must be gone before sunrise, Petroc,' said the Captain gently.
'I won't leave him,' I rasped. I had not cried. Instead I seemed to have dried up from the inside out. My eyes stung and my mouth was parched.
'The master of the inn will take care of him. He will get a proper burial. I wish we could take him back to the ship… to his home. But we cannot. If we do not leave now we are all dead men, and he would not wish that.' And Adric?' I said finally.
Adric is fine,' said the librarian. 'My wounds are not worth dwelling upon, now,' and he crossed himself with a glance at Will. 'He must have been a good man, Petroc, for he made a good death.' He shivered, and drew his cloak about him. And he died with the blessing of friendship. Now, my friend the Captain is right: we must leave here this instant, and I am coming with you.'
They pulled me to my feet and out of the taverna, and dragged me until I started running with them. The others feared meeting the Watch, but there was no one much about, although the streets near the Taverna were still full of the stench of burning. We did not stop until the Campo, and when we had crossed it we ran again. The jarring of the cobbles beneath my feet helped keep my head empty, but as soon as we were back on the Cormaran I could not escape and stumbled away to crouch against the rail, hugging my knees, stupefied with grief. Adric was sent to he down in the cabin. The Captain was giving orders and the ship was springing to life, another shore leave cancelled, angry men taking out their frustrations on rope and wood. When everything was to his satisfaction he beckoned Adric from the cabin, and the two men came and knelt down next to me.
'He was a good man – I had so little time to get to know him, but he had his own… his own honour, and it was very strong,' the Captain said. 'You called each other brother, but that is truly what he was to you, I think? It is hard to see a brother die.' He paused. 'That I do know.' He passed his hands across his face. 'Now forgive us – this is the last time we will invade your sorrow – but we must make you understand one more thing about last night.'
Adric nodded. 'Do you remember Saint Elfsige of Frome?' he asked, and I looked up in surprise. 'Quite a story that made.'
'But you were working for me that day,' continued the Captain. 'Elfsige ended up as someone else entirely, you know. He made a Flemish abbot very happy. I have known of you since you went to Buckfast, Petroc. But you will wonder, one day if not sooner, whether Adric meant for you to… to end up in this life. I can assure you that he did not. His heart was quite broken by your troubles.' 'But they were not of your making, Adric,' I said quietly.
'Not directly,' said the librarian, 'But you were chosen by Balecester and his son because you were my student. That alone has filled me with guilt.' He studied my face. 'But you are alive. And now, it seems, we are of the same company.' He stood up leaned on the rail.- 'Now we must end this, must we not?'
"We must,' said the Captain. He took me by the shoulders. 'Your brother Will would want us to claim the prize. And that we shall do. We are putting out this minute for the Ionian.'
I felt as cold and lonely as the great ice-fields of Greenland. I hardly cared what these two had been saying to me. At that moment, what cared I for Adric's guilt, or the Captain's sympathy? But, like an iceberg bobbing alone on the Sea of Darkness, a thought formed itself in my mind. 'It was Kervezey, wasn't it?' I said. 'That is my guess.'
There was nothing more to say. Adric limped off to the cabin. The Captain went back to directing the crew: a fight had broken out on the deck and the mutterings were getting louder. There would be many promises made and ruffled feathers smoothed before the men were happy again. I wanted no part of it. Feeling utterly alone, I went and stood in the bow as the Cormaran drifted out into the main channel and began to slip away down the Arno to the sea. The lights of Pisa were dimming behind us when I felt an arm slip through mine. It was Anna, and we stood like that, silent, until the sun rose and the flying fishes came out to dance back and forth across our path.
Chapter Eighteen
Koskino was a mountain, a slab of white rock thrust straight up out of the sea. Lush lower down, the trees thinned as the slopes became cliffs, with here and there a slash of dark green where a company of cypresses had taken hold, and then the island ended in an abrupt, stark line, seemingly flat as a table on top. It was getting dark as we drew near, and the clouds had formed out of a clear sky and were rolling slowly over the top of the cliff wall. It had seemed tiny from a distance, this place, another speck among specks in the ruffled, inky sea. We were sailing into its shadow now, and the day's heat reached us, a parching breath, along with the mad choir of insects.
Anna was with me in the bow. We were friends again, although we had not spoken of what it was that had come between us since leaving Bordeaux. Indeed I did not want to dwell on it, for it seemed a time of sickness, as if I had been suffering from a long fever and a wandering of the mind and now was well again. That is a strange thing to say, perhaps, by one who had just seen his greatest friend suffer a bloody and untimely death. But now what troubled me most was not the manner of Will's passing – for that was pure pain and could be treated almost like a wound – but the knowledge that his life had been poisoned by Sir Hugh de Kervezey, long before Kervezey – and I did not doubt it had been his hand on the trigger – had put an end to it. The sense that Will's life had been doomed long before our last night in Balecester, in fact from the moment we had met, came back to haunt me. I found I could not even remember our first meeting – the refectory at the cathedral school, perhaps? – and this troubled me even more. Kervezey had cursed us – not just in the trials we had suffered in our flesh, but in our souls, for whatever else I believe about the soul, I know it is there that love, and friendship, grow like bright flowers. Kervezey had blighted us, both outside and in.