The Grand Cham (Lamb, Adventure magazine)/Chapter 7
VII
THE CASTLE WITHOUT DOORS
CLAVIJO, in choosing the Nauplia, had selected the most comfortable means of travel to be had in those days. The pilgrim galliot was broad of beam and fitted with extra cabins in the stern castle. A dozen great sweeps aided the lateen sail. The sides of the vessel were high, and sloped well inboard—affording good protection against the waves.
The pilgrim galleys were designed to provide some ease for passengers. Live fowls were carried. The master of the ship could not remain at any given port for purposes of trade more than three days. He was also obliged to put in at any port they might fancy.
Clavijo, Mocenigo and Rudolfo had all quartered themselves aft; Soranzi had made shift with sleeping-space below decks. But Bearn, who had discovered for himself the unattractiveness of quarters under the deck where the passengers camped all over each other, appropriated space for his mantle and bundle on the main deck under the overhang of the bow.
He was somewhat surprised to see that the ship’s captain was hugging the shore, keeping a course well within sight of land. “Coasting” it was called in those days. Since this was the popular route, favored by the passengers, it was more liable to attack by Moslem pirates than the more direct course out into the Ægean.
Pirate galleys frequented the sea lanes to the East, off Greece, and Michael had observed at a glance that the Nauplia was poorly equipped for defense. Moreover he wondered that Clavijo was not afraid of encountering thieves. The Spaniard had been entrusted with a treasure of some fifteen thousand Venetian ducats and valuable goods.
It was the second night out and a full moon hung in a clear sky; the man at the steering-oar guided the Nauplia within sight of the shadows of land.
Near Michael groups of Armenian and Muscovite traders slept, men and women together, heedless of the clamor of voyagers at dice and wine, or the quarreling and singing below decks where torches of pine-pitch made sleep difficult, if not perilous.
Michael found that he missed Bembo’s light tongue and deeper philosophy. The jester would have been in his element on such a night. But Bembo had left him without farewell the day before the galliot sailed.
The tumult and lights of the pilgrim ship formed a great contrast to the silence and speed of a smaller galley that swept out of an inlet with oars plying on either side and spray flashing in the moonlight.
For a second Michael studied it, then took up his sword and ran aft to where the captain slept by the helmsman.
“Look at yonder craft,” observed the Breton, shaking the slumbering seaman, “and then dream if you can.”
The Venetian stumbled to his feet, gazed, and swore roundly.
“Saint Anthony of Padua! I like it not.”
He strode to the break of the stern castle.
“Ho, there! Cressets! Women into the stern! Out with your swords, messers. There be pirates at hand or I am a blind man!”
The gamesters sprang up. Men of the crew ran to fix torches in place at the ship’s side; fagots contained in steel baskets were kindled at bow and stern. The women, wailing and crying, were driven below decks.
Captain,” suggested Michael, “it would be well to man the sweeps and get the galliot well under weigh. Your sloping sides are comfortably devised for boarders. Our safety lies in ramming the galley with our wooden beak, such as it is.”
The Venetian, experienced in such matters, saw the wisdom of this and was giving orders for the rowers to push out the great oars, when a tall figure appeared on the balcony below the steering-platform and silenced him.
“Nay. No time for that. Summon up your oarsmen to fight on deck.”
Michael, leaning down, saw that it was Rudolfo who spoke. The condottiere had drawn his sword and was giving swift instructions to his own men who tumbled up, pulling mail hoods about their heads and stringing their bows.
“You hear me, fool!” Rudolfo cried at the Venetian. “I am in command of the armed forces of this cursed galliot. By the rood”
The captain shrugged, glanced at the oncoming galley—now not a dozen ships’ lengths away—and complied. The crew hurried to the danger point at the ship’s side, shepherded by Rudolfo, while the Nauplia barely moved through the water, for the wind was light.
Young Mocenigo reeled upon deck, more than a little the worse for wine. Michael saw Soranzi peer from a cabin and straightway vanish.
The brazen sound of the ship’s bell voiced a warning to all who still slept. From the dark huddle of Muscovites and Armenians emerged men with bows—Oriental traders, well able to fight in a crisis. On the waist of the Nauplia tumult reigned.
Glancing up at the sail, the Venetian skipper whispered to Michael: “Let the gallants do as they please. By Saint Anthony, I’ll keep our bow against the other craft.”
Michael took his stand beside Rudolfo. The condottiere was a brilliant figure in the ruddy light of the torches, his silver-inlaid helmet glittering, his crimson mantle flung back from his mailed chest. He ceased his directions to his men long enough to look swiftly at the Breton and his teeth shone at his beard.
“By the rood, messer, you stand behind me? I see you love not the front line of battle.”
Now Michael wore no armor under his jerkin and mere prudence had dictated that he shelter himself behind the high rail as long as possible to escape the first arrow flights of the pirates, until they should board.
“As you wish, signor.”
He pulled himself up into one of the platforms fashioned for archers to stand on. Rudolfo moved slightly away and Michael smiled at the inbred suspicion that took the condottiere beyond his reach.
But the arrows from the galley rattled high against the mast and tore through the great square of the sail that bellied and flapped as the Venetian skipper came about to present his bow to the pirate craft.
Rudolfo’s half-dozen archers plied their long bows with disciplined precision.
“Saint Mark and Rudolfo!” Their shout went over the water to the galley. Answering cries identified the attackers as Turks and Greeks.
“Dogs!” snarled young Mocenigo. “The Lion of Saint Mark! Ha—do you like his claws?”
He seized one of the cressets by its supports and cast it out upon the deck of the galley as that craft moved past—the maneuver of the Venetian skipper having kept the galley from striking the side of the pilgrim ship with its bow.
For a moment there was a pandemonium of shouts, cries of anger and pain and the flicker of javelins and arrows. The archers of Rudolfo, bearing long leather shields in front of them on their left arms, escaped injury, but Michael saw a pilgrim or two fall writhing to the deck.
Then the galley was past its prey and turning slowly—one bank of oars plying.
“Pando!” called the Nauplia’s skipper. “About!” He pushed the two steering sweeps over and the galliot swung slowly into the offshore tack on which it had been when the pirates were sighted.
Only one more attempt the galley made to close, and the motley defenders of the pilgrim ship were lining the other rail when something whizzed past Michael from behind and stuck into the wooden planking between him and Rudolfo.
The Breton glanced around and saw only the confusion of undisciplined men taking up new positions. Then he drew the knife from the rail.
“A pretty present,” laughed the condottiere. “For you or me?”
THE knife was a long, heavy blade, its bronze hilt richly inlaid with silver. Michael thrust it into his belt and observed that the galley was drawing off, followed by the taunting shouts of the Venetians.
“They have small stomach for a fight,” he muttered.
“Thanks to God and our good friend Pietro Rudolfo.” Clavijo’s bull voice filled the ship. “Come, Master Bearn, I do not see that you were any too forward in the affray. Doubtless your skin is tender and you hang back lest it be pricked.”
Now Michael had not seen Clavijo at all along the embattled rail of the galliot and he strongly suspected that the man had remained in his cabin until the pirates had drawn off. Then a stronger suspicion assailed him, and he touched the knife in his girdle.
“Aye,” he assented seriously, “the skin is very tender—upon my back, and this poniard is both heavy and sharp. It was cast at me from behind.”
He held it up by the point before the eyes of the Spaniard, who blinked and pulled at his long beard. Rudolfo took it, glanced it over, looked searchingly at Clavijo from under his thick brows, and tossed it over the side of the vessel.
“Some sailor’s blade,” he shrugged, “and doubtless meant for my kidneys. I am not over popular with the seamen of the Nauplia, because, verily, I enforce discipline upon occasion.”
It was a long speech for the taciturn condottiere to make. Michael would have chosen to keep the dagger, in hopes of learning who its owner was. Yet, as Rudolfo said, it might well have been intended for him.
“Hark ye, Messer Clavijo.” The Breton folded his arms. “Neither master of this vessel nor leader of your men-at-arms am I. The Maritime Council engaged me to aid you to navigate unknown waters if need be, and to arrange transport upon land. This will I do, so well as I may. Methinks the time may come when you will have need of my services.”
He was looking at Clavijo, but Rudolfo spoke. “As a slave, Master Bearn? It is said that you sleep alone in your cloak, so that no other may see the marks of a whip upon your shoulders.”
So saying, he stepped back, laying hand lightly on the hilt of his sword. Michael Bearn drew a long breath, but his left hand—that Rudolfo, having learned his lesson once, was watching—reached up to the clasp of his mantle instead of to his weapon.
The cloak fell to the deck, and Michael’s muscular fingers ripped open the collar of his jerkin, drawing it down over his bare shoulder. Both Clavijo and Rudolfo saw the deep red welt of scars.
“Aye,” nodded Michael, “there be the marks of a Turkish scourge.”
At this Clavijo started and a curiously intent frown passed over his smooth brow. He eyed the Breton’s square, hard face and wiry, gray-black hair as if seeing him for the first time.
“Moreover,” went on Michael tranquilly, “signori, you will note that my right arm hangs useless. It was broken by those same servants of the sultan. Perhaps this is why I have no longer any love for fighting when there is no need”
“But surely, Master Bearn,” smiled Clavijo ironically, “there was need to repel these pirates, who would have made short matter of us otherwise.”
MICHAEL laughed. The attack by the small galley had had in it more bark than bite, and once it was clear to their enemies that the pilgrim ship was not to be surprised, the Turks and Greeks seemed to lose heart. Such an affair bore little resemblance to the grim struggles Michael Bearn had shared in, along the frontier of the Orient.
“You laugh, signor?” Rudolfo’s voice was heavy with insult. “Perhaps you would relish another scourging?”
The dark blood flooded into the young Breton’s face. Around the three a circle of Rudolfo’s men and sailors had gathered, scenting a quarrel. The gleam of torches lighted the scene. He wondered if the others had expected the condottiere to challenge him.
Rudolfo was not the man to be forced into a fight that he had not anticipated beforehand.
And then Michael heard an exclamation from one of the seamen. A strange whirring filled the air. Shrill squawking resounded on all sides.
One of the torches was knocked to the deck by a fluttering, animated ball that leaped and bounded among the men. The deck of the Nauplia in a moment was full of poultry. Hens, roosters, ducks and guinea fowl dashed about underfoot and overhead.
“Ten thousand devils!” Rudolfo struck viciously at a fat pullet that collided with his face. The spectators, the tensity of the quarrel broken in a flash, started running about, clutching at the flying meat.
It was each man for himself and the best dinner to the quickest. The torches were soon darting into every quarter of the deck, leaving Michael in semi-darkness. Clavijo was leading the angry Rudolfo away.
A grotesque figure rose from the deck at Michael’s elbow—a misshapen, stained and grimacing form clad in striped raiment.
“Master,” cried Bembo, “the field is mine. My light cavalry, released by a purloined key from their storage prison, have scattered our foes. Come, good master, let us make good our retreat!”
In the shadows of the bow Michael sat down on his bundle and laughed, more than a little provoked.
“A fair night, cousin mine,” chattered the jester, taking this as a good omen. “Give me thanks for carrying you bodily away from the demons o’ the sea. Black Rudolfo would ha’ cast you overside as easily as I could suck an egg. Marry—the sight of eggs turns my belly for I lived upon them, hidden in the hold with the fowls for three days and two nights. Then, not an hour since I was awakened by a shouting as of the foul fiend, whereupon the roosters crowed, thinking it was day. Master, a soldier crawled into my castle, in the dark, and I thought the pirates held the ship and I was to be ripped open without the services of a confessor. Pompa mortis! Oh, the trappings of death!”
Bembo shivered and looked around anxiously at the tranquil moonlit sea.
“But, forsooth, the big soldier thrust his thatch through the window of the hold and bawled to the other vessel to stand off, that the plan had been changed, and it was useless to attack the galliot. A brave lad, thought I, to bid the pirates mend their ways and be gone. Verily he was a potent bully, for the miscreants gave back and left us in peace. So I—being sorely athirst from fear and hen’s feathers and bad eggs—I climbed to the roof o’ this house and saw Rudolfo about to spit you, whereupon I ran back for my winged allies.”
“Was the man you saw in armor?”
“Armor, quoth’a, verily so. When his face was i’ the window I saw a steel cap as big as a bucket. Master, chide me not for coming. Nay, no voyage that was ever brewed could make me leave the good man who shared his wine and meat wi’ me; nor would my curiosity leave me in peace until I learned wherein this voyage differed from other voyages, as you said.”
Michael arranged his pack for a pillow and laid his sword close to his left hand. The jester blinked at him from shrewd little eyes, the great head turned to one side, like a dog’s, questioningly.
“A ship, Bembo,” murmured the Breton, his eyes closed, “a harmless pilgrim galliot, beats off an attack by well-armed raiders because—a soldier calls secretly to the foe from below decks. One of Rudolfo’s men. A dagger is thrown from behind the mast. Feed your curiosity with that and let me sleep.”
IT WAS a leaner and dirtier throng that lined the rail of the Nauplia when that good galliot entered the dark waters of the Golden Horn and anchored off the crowded shore of Constantinople after the storms of the Ægean that followed the attack by the pirates.
And when Clavijo and his party reembarked for Pera and the Black Sea in a small Venetian trading-galley, Mocenigo was no longer with them. The young count, Clavijo explained to Bearn, had found paradise enough in the Hippodrome and palaces of the emperor, and women to his liking. The departure of the others had been hurried by the insults of Moslem warriors who thronged the water-front.
Michael said nothing but sought out Bembo, who was sitting on a chest on the jetty, eyeing the preparations for departure.
“The first of us has fallen by the wayside, Bembo,” he observed gravely. He had been apprehensive about the jester since Bembo bobbed up as a stowaway, but had not reproved him. “Will you not follow his example and remain here?”
“I would see the Grand Cham.”
Michael looked at him and laughed.
“You will never see the Grand Cham.”
“Well—” Bembo was surprized—“you must know, master, for you have traveled near Cathay. I would see the city and the gold palaces—”
“There is no city.”
“Master? You have heard Clav”
“Clavijo—” Michael’s smile broadened into a wide grin—“Messer Ruy de Gonzales Clavijo is the greatest liar in Christendom.”
Bembo gaped and glanced from the ship to the stores on the jetty and at the Breton as if doubting his senses.
“Clavijo, my good Bembo, is a man with one talent. Aye—a tongue. The sun never shone upon a greater liar. What he did not pick up at the water-front of Genoa and Venice he heard related of the traveling monks. When that failed him he had his tongue, and wit to match. It made his fortune in Venice. Until the council took him at his own value, forsooth, and sent him to find the city that is a lie.”
Michael chuckled at the memory. “When Clavijo by his own testimony was in Cathay I saw him among a throng of camp-followers, fleeing along the Danube.”
At this Bembo scratched his head vigorously. Then his eyes lighted and he leaped from the chest.
“Aye, master. Well, then, since this is a quest of folly, who should be the leader but a fool?”
When the galley cleared the Horn Bembo stood beside the helmsman, a wooden sword stuck in his ragged girdle, his twisted legs planted wide, and his bearing as important as that of an admiral of the Venetian fleet.
And when, a month later, the party of explorers rode inland from Trebizond, Bembo took his place at the head of the column, mounted on a caparisoned mule.
“On, into terra incognita!” he cried, waving his wooden sword valiantly.
In fact Trebizond was the boundary of what we now call Europe. It was the eastern door of the fading Byzantine Empire, the last trade port of the Serene Republic of Venice, which had its bailio stationed in an arsenal on shore. The walled city, rising on rocks from this shore, was the home of Manuel the Second, almost the last of the Comneni line—emperors of Trebizond for generations.
Now they were bound, as Bembo had stated, into unknown territory—into blank spaces on Venetian maps. No one in Trebizond had been anxious to accompany them for it was known that the mountains to the south and east as far as the Salt Sea were occupied by tribes who paid tribute to a monarch of Tatary.
Soranzi and others of the party had taken this information as a good augury and were in high spirits. So also was Bembo.
“Come, my flock!” He jangled the bells on his hood. “Follow your bell-wether. Ply your spurs, sound the timbrels! A fool is your leader, and folly your guide. Ride, my cousins in folly, and take him who first draws rein!”
Journeying to the southeast, they entered bare brown plains and passes that wound among stunted, rocky hills where the valleys were yet snow-coated and the air was chill. For the first time the voyagers were alone in a strange land. And stranger than the aspect of the country where isolated shepherds ran away at their approach and the inns were no more than walled spaces, where the animals could be picketed and fires lighted—stranger than this was the castle without doors.
The highway they had been following was no more than a trail from valley to valley. The castle overlooked this path from a barren cliffside up which wound a well-defined way cut in the rock.
Half-way up the ramp, as the travelers termed the road, they were halted by a ragged man on a shaggy pony who called to them harshly. Clavijo appeared to meditate on the meaning of the horseman’s words, then shook his head. Michael, however, interpreted.
“The man is an Armenian. He says we are in the land of his lord and must pay the customary tribute. It would be best to do so.”
Soranzi, who handled the expenditures of the expedition, demurred, and the rider retired, bidding them stay where they were. Presently a thin man clad in leathers and furs appeared in the roadway, followed by thirty or more even more ragged horsemen armed with bows.
At this Rudolfo swore and began to muster his mailed men-at-arms to the front of the column, when Michael checked him.
“This rider declares that he is lord of the castle, although he does not dare occupy it owing to the attacks of the Turks who are in the habit of raiding the country from the sultanate to the south. He says that he is very poor and a Christian—which, forsooth, is but half true—and needs money to carry on his fighting. What will you give him, Messer Soranzi?”
The merchant scowled, for besides the presents destined for the Grand Cham the only other goods in the caravan were his own large stock in trade from which he expected a profit of several hundred per cent. at the least.
“Tell the Moor,” he commanded, “that we be merchants seeking the court of the Grand Cham. Travelers do not pay tribute at castles of the Grand Cham.”
Michael grinned and spoke with the Armenian chief, who frowned in turn and responded testily.
“He says,” announced the Breton, “that he knows naught of any Grand Cham or Khan except himself and the Turkish sultans and that if we are to travel in his land we must make him a present.”
Clavijo and Soranzi argued the matter hotly and finally produced a piece of scarlet cloth and a silver cup. These the Armenian refused angrily, saying that he must have more.
Darkness was falling and a thin rain pierced the garments of the travelers uncomfortably. Soranzi shook his thin fists and chewed at his beard.
“And this dog calls himself a Christian! Well, give him a roll of Phrygian purple velvet from the lot we carry for the great Cham”
“And a handful of gold from your own fat pouch, Messer Merchant,” snarled Rudolfo, who was both cold and hungry. “A pox on your bartering!”
This brought a wail from Soranzi, but mollified the Armenian, who withdrew up the hillside with his motley army and his spoils. But the Venetians found that the horsemen had not remained at the castle. It was quite empty; moreover every door had been removed from its hinges.
When the beasts had been quartered in the courtyard and Michael with some of the soldiers had succeeded in lighting a fire in the great hall—not without difficulty—and after they had dined on cold mutton, cold bread-cakes and wine, Clavijo, who had been very thoughtful for some time, spoke up—
“My friends, look yonder.”
RUDOLFO started nervously and they all stared at a sign on the stone wall of the hall, a cross, obscured by smoke, chiseled into the granite.
“That is a potent symbol of the Cathayans,” nodded Clavijo, “one of the talismans of their alchemists. Aye, this castle bears evidence of their magic. Why is there no castellan? Where be the doors?”
As the men were silent, the snarling cry of a jackal came to their ears from the darkness and rain outside and Soranzi paled.
“Where vanished the knavish riders that we met?” continued Clavijo.
“To their tents, elsewhere,” broke in Michael. “As for the cross, it is Christian in sooth. The doors were doubtless removed by the Turks who, the Armenian said, recently sacked the place and left orders that it was not to be defended again.”
Clavijo shrugged, with a dubious smile. Since learning that Bearn had been a captive of the Moors, as he chose to call them, he had been careful to avoid discussion with the Breton.
“As you wish. But soon we will come upon the piles of human skulls. I suppose you would say there is no danger there.” He shook his head in gentle reproof. “Now, sirs, I have a plan. Messer Soranzi seeks to avoid robbery. Methinks you all would fain live longer. So be it. I, who have mastered the dangers of the mountains mountains and the sands and the Cathayans, I will go ahead from here alone.”
Michael glanced at him searchingly and was silent. “You will be safe here, sirs,” continued the Spaniard, “under the potent protection of Rudolfo and his men. I have no fear. What I have done once can be accomplished again. Even though I may never return, I would prefer to press on from here alone. A score of swords and halberds will avail us little against the Cathayans. Better one should die than all.
“If I am not back by the first of Winter, sirs, you can retrace your steps easily to Trebizond. By tying the mules, head to tail, in a fashion I wot well of, I can make shift to bear with me the gifts for the Grand Cham, placed in packs upon the mules.”
Rudolfo, however, voiced a blunt negative.
“By the rood, sir, we have made a bond between us. We will go in a body or not at all.”
This view was shared by Soranzi, who, despite privations and plundering, had hugged to his bosom the dream of fabulous profits promised him by his astrologer in Venice.
“Aye,” put in Bembo seriously; “we will go in our bodies or not at all.”
“I would fain see the bull-stag that you say is to be met with in Cathay,” insisted Michael.
“A most curious beast, Master Bearn,” observed Clavijo mechanically. “It has more hairs on its tail than a lion in its mane.[1] The pagans in Cathay entrap the beast by setting a snare artfully between two trees so that when the taurus—which is the name bestowed upon it by Herodotus—passes between the trees, its tail is caught fast. So tender is the beast of its fine tail that it remains passive lest a hair be pulled out, when the Cathayans may easily make it prisoner.”
“Yet, signor,” added Michael, “they must take care in freeing it, for if they should sever the tail from the body by stroke of sword, the bull-stag would perceive that its valued member was lost beyond repair and would no longer feel constrained to quietude. I fear that many imprudent Cathayans have died unshriven because they cut off the tail of a taurus.”
Clavijo pulled at his beard—a habit when he was dubious.
“Most true, Master Beam. Only one such as I who have knowledge of the wiles of the Cathayan beasts may cope with them. I remember a mighty serpent that I set out to slay. I found the serpent engaged in a monstrous struggle with a dragon before its cave.”
“Saint Bacchus preserve us!” Bembo glanced fearfully at the shadows in the corners of the damp, leaf-strewn hall. Several of the men-at-arms who were listening from their fire drew nearer and gaped.
“The dragon is the mightiest monster of Cathay,” resumed Clavijo more readily. “It has a lance at the end of its armored tail that can strike through the stoutest mail. Signori, I carefully avoided the sweep of the deadly tail and waited. As God willed, the dragon seized the serpent by the head. Both pulled mightily, and when their necks were taut I stepped nearer and smote with my sword, severing the Medusa-like head of the dragon from its shoulders.”
“Well struck!” approved Michael. "And the serpent?”
“Alas, that was a most fearsome beast. For days I awaited an opportunity to slay it. Before long it transpired that the foul beast came from its lair to attack a passing lion. Verily, signori, it twined about the king of beasts and swallowed its victim hindquarters first. Forsooth, that was my chance. Rushing forward, I swung my sword upon its neck as it lay sluggish. When the head of the serpent fell to earth the head of the lion fell off with that of its conqueror, and I rode back with double booty to the city of the Cham.”
Michael was rolling himself in his cloak on a table for the night when Bembo approached.
"Master,” whispered the jester, "verily just now I looked without the castle and saw two spirits.”
“Bah! Your own fears you saw.”
“Nay, they had two great heads. Gian, the big lieutenant of Rudolfo, was with me and we both said a pater noster. Then Gian, being a braver man than I and somewhat the better for wine, crept closer and cast his knife at one of the two. Whereupon they disappeared.”
This incident Michael did not permit to disturb his slumbers. He, as well as Clavijo, had noticed that the Armenians—the chief of Cabasica, the castle without doors—had left riders to spy upon them. The turbans of the watchers had served, doubtless, to make Clavijo exaggerate the size of their heads.
He was well aware that the Spaniard was caught between two fires. Beheading was the penalty that the Maritime Council would inflict on Clavijo if his deceit were discovered and Venetian officials should lay hand on him. So, Michael reasoned, Clavijo, possibly through Rudolfo's agency, had arranged for the mock attack by the pirates on the Nauplia, hoping to be taken prisoner and robbed by friendly hands.
But the galliot, owing to Michael's warning and the skill of the Venetian captain, had been able to offer unexpected resistance. Clavijo, if he had thought to have himself and his companions captured by a convenient foe, had been disappointed.
Mocenigo, a well-known Venetian and hence dangerous to Clavijo, had been persuaded, not with great difficulty, to fall behind at Constantinople. And the life of Michael—another dangerous member—had been attempted during the sham attack on the galliot. This puzzled the Breton more than a little, because he did not think that Clavijo was the type to turn so quickly to assassination.
Thinking over the situation drowsily, Michael remembered that Bembo had just said something about a man who cast a knife. What knife? Rudolfo had thrown the silver-chased weapon into the sea! Rudolfo—a knife.…
Hereupon Michael slumbered fitfully, dreaming that Clavijo had taken the form of a dragon with a man’s head and that flames and smoke were spouting from his nostrils. He imagined that he was bound and helpless and the monster that was Clavijo came nearer until the flames touched his face. …
At this point Michael jerked into wakefulness and perceived that Bembo had heaped fresh brush on the fire which had blazed up nearby. Soranzi, his cloak wrapped closely about him, sat hunched by the flames, shivering and grunting in his sleep, looking for all the world like an old and dingy vulture with an overlarge belly and bald head.
Rudolfo and Gian were standing, fully clad, in a corner of the hall and both were looking at him.
Sleep had refreshed Michael’s brain. It struck him that Gian had been the man who cast the knife at him.
For the remainder of the night Michael kept awake.
- ↑ Clavijo had heard of the Central Asian yak.