The Devil's Crossing by Hana Cole

Author:Hana Cole [Cole, Hana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2020-04-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

‘Bad weather?’ The old man’s face was impassive, although Gui fancied he was amused. ‘Well that depends on what kind of bad weather you’re talking about. The wrong bad weather and you’ll finish on the bottom of the sea with your Roman galleys and long boats from the North.’

‘I’m sure of it. But what about a better starred, bad weather?’

The navigator sniffed the air. It was hard to tell his age. His skin was weathered and couperose but looked as though it had been that way for a very long time and would still have the same aspect in twenty years. The corner of the man’s lip lifted and he nudged his cap up over his brow with a thick, knotted finger.

‘You think it’s not possible to smell fair weather after forty years at sea?’

‘If you tell me it is so.’

The blue eyes crinkled. ‘You are not a merchant, are you?’

Gui felt his neck prickle beneath the collar of his stolen cloak. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re too honest. That is what I mean.’

‘I am not a sea-farer,’ Gui replied. At least that was honest. ‘I’m journeying on behalf of my business partners.’

The old man’s eyes travelled over Gui’s clothes, and he gave a slow nod of comprehension. ‘If you say so.’

A moment of total stillness radiated from him. Time itself seemed to part like waves about them. Gui felt his body yield its tension to the old man’s unspoken understanding that before him was someone in desperate need of help. Gui heard a voice say, if you don’t speak now, it will be too late. He drew breath, and staring past the other man’s shoulder said, ‘I need to get to Alexandria because there is someone I am looking for.’

The navigator’s reply was a patient pause.

‘My son has been taken.’

‘Slavers?’

Shame cinched Gui’s stomach. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ll give false hope to no one, so I’ll tell you the slave trade is rife and there’s nothing those men won’t do to defend their business.’

Gui’s limbs felt weighted down, a lead line plummeting into the deep.

‘I have to find our son before it’s too late. My wife…I promised…It has only been a few weeks. There must be some way to trace him. Someone must know.’

‘Slow down, son. The men who take these souls do not mean them to be found. Rushing will only serve to trip you up.’

‘You know who they are?’

‘I know most who hazard their lives on these waters.’ The bright blue eyes looked right into Gui’s, and he could feel the man taking the measure of his heart.

‘Your son was taken from Marseille?’

‘He was.’ Gui answered abruptly, as though seeking to distance himself from the words. ‘I think he took the cross with a group of shepherd boys and went to Marseille to find passage overseas.’

It still sounded as absurd to hear it aloud as it had the first time he was forced to explain. It prompted the same, unanswerable question he knew lay coiled in his gut and perhaps always would: how did I let it happen? The navigator rubbed his teeth with his tongue.

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