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directions, haven't we?"
Lovi turned away, leaned on the rail, and covered his face with his hands. "I
want to go home, can't you understand that? Nothing is right anymore.
Gregorius is gone. You will have nothing to do with me. My master is obsessed
with finding those miserable islands, and I don't want to spend the rest of my
life in this cold, forbidding land, chasing something that doesn't exist."
"How cruel you are! How selfish." Pierrette's indignation was genuine even
though Lovi's trickery had played right to her own desires; ibn Saul had not
found the Fortunate Isles, and now he would not.
"If you were less cruel, I wouldn't have done it."
"That's not fair. It's not my fault."
"Just go away." Then: "Are you going to tell him?"
"Why? He'd just be more miserable than he will be, when he realizes where
we're going." She went forward, and spent the last hours of the night snuggled
up against Gustave.
At dawn, the sun rose in a glowing western sky. "Impossible!" yowled ibn Saul.
The shipmaster smiled smugly. "Since we have been sailing north of east all
night, and are now halfway home, I intend to remain on this course as long as
the wind holds. If you wish to follow your silly device all over the trackless
sea, you must find another ship." Ibn Saul's vehement protests did not sway
him.
"You have not been watching my crew the way I have," the captain said. "You
haven't heard how they curse you at mealtimes, when the worms in their moldy
bread prove the best part of the meal. You haven't listened to the whispers
whenever two or three of them gather to coil a rope one man could coil.
Another day of this aimlessness and you might find yourself overboard with a
marlinespike pushed up behind your eyeballs. Be grateful for my caution."
Ibn Saul accepted the inevitable then, and spent the remainder of the voyage
home sullenly alone.
* * *
With shifts in the wind, and allowing for the tides, it was two days before
they slid up to Gesocribate's wharf. "Where are you going, boy?" ibn Saul
called out to Lovi. "Help us offload these sacks."
"I'm going to look for Gregorius. He may be here still, waiting for us."
"Bah! He is long gone. When the baggage is stowed in our lodgings, you may
seek where you will. But you'll waste your time." Lovi reluctantly helped
Pierrette lash the sacks to two poles, and the poles to
Gustave.
The aroma of crisp lamb fat filled the inn, and as soon as possible they sat
to enjoy their first decent meal since the last of the ship's pigs and
chickens had been slaughtered. But despite good cider and fine, tender meat,
it was a gloomy gathering. "Have you made further plans, Master ibn Saul?"
asked Pierrette.
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"I have seen vessels like that fat, single-masted one, the third from the end
of the wharf, in my voyages along the Wendish coast, which is beyond the
Viking lands. Unless I miss my guess, it will be homeward bound soon and we
will be aboard it."
"But master I thought we'd be going home!" Lovi had seen the light of reason
(and had smelled the lamb cooking) and had postponed his search for Gregorius.
"We shall by the eastern river route to the Euxine Sea, Byzantium, Greece . .
. why slog over dull, familiar ground when we can see new sights, and visit
the fountainheads of true civilization, instead?"
Lovi, Pierrette observed, had entirely lost his appetite, upon hearing that,
but she herself was elated. "I
will arrange passage for the three of us," the scholar continued, "And . . ."
"For the two of you, master," Pierrette said. "Our agreement was for me to
accompany you in search of the Fortunate Isles. Though I would someday like to
see Byzantium, I must postpone it. I have much unfinished work at home in
Citharista." That was true, but misleading. It would remain unfinished a while
longer. Through the material of her pouch, Pierrette squeezed the hard shape
of the cylinder-seal the
Hibernian boy had given her. The scholar accepted her pronouncement easily
enough, but Lovi's silence seemed icier than ever. "I'm going up to our room,
now," Pierrette said. "Try not to wake me when you come in." She swung her
legs over the bench and departed.
Actually, her purpose was not immediate sleep, but a quick sponge bath. Aboard
the ship, it had been difficult enough to find privacy for essential bodily
functions, let alone cleanliness. As on most vessels of any size, there had
been buckets for well-paying passengers to relieve themselves, and a wooden
trapeze slung over the rail aft for crew (who of course urinated whenever and
wherever they wished, as long as it was over the lee rail). Now Pierrette
noted that the door to their room had a wooden latch on the inside that could
be lifted by a string threaded through a hole, from the outside. Once in the
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