The Book of the Lion by Michael Cadnum

bully’s head, I did not add.
    â€œEveryone is watching,” whispered Hubert.
    Indeed, from every point on the ship, from tiller to Saint Agnes, sailors looked up from their work.
    With a smile the Genoan took the rope from my hands, whipped the twine around the rope end, and presented it to me. He worked a small dagger from his belt, sawed briefly at the rope, and left it in my hands.
    I felt myself blush, bested by his fierce good-humor.
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    Our last remaining chicken, the white rooster, crowed time and again. The cook had hung his cage on the mast, perhaps so his last day among the living could be a pleasure.
    It was another warm day, seabirds eyeing us from above, the smell of a shore in the wind, fishnets and shellfish and cattle, although the land was far away, a brown wrinkle above the sea. Miles was singing the song about the gander who caught his neck in milady’s bower.
    The lookout called from above, announcing a barca. There was usually an hour, or even half a day, between the lookout’s cry and the actual approach of a ship full of silks or cloves, lumbering heavy laden from the fabled east.
    But this time I caught the scent, man-sweat and wet timber, within minutes. I stood in time to watch Hubert climb the rigging. Rannulf stepped from the shade and spat over the side of the ship, into the sea. The sailors made a show of demonstrating no great interest in this floating building that bore down on us, two great brass-tipped horns protruding from its prow.
    But none of us spoke, unless to put on an affection of ease, the Genoan taking a commanding interest in lashing a sweep to a pin.
    Our Venetian captain sent a man to the mast to shake down a blue-and-white Crusader banner, but even so the galley backed oars and came around. A line of turbaned, bearded men gazed down at us, with a show of smiles. The cloths on their heads were brilliant colors, a dyer’s pride, plum scarlet, peacock blue. The swords at their hips were crescents, like the early moon, and the sun flashed from the steel.
    The oars on the far side of the ship splashed, and the shadow of the galley darkened our deck and took the gentle wind from our sails.
    â€œInfidels,” said Nigel, in a low voice. He made the sign of the cross. “Not a single man of them a Christian.”
    I did not have the habit, as most men-at-arms did, of keeping my broadsword where I could quickly fasten it around my waist. I stood naked of arms, and felt cold.
    â€œThey will board us,” I said, in a husky voice.
    â€œA Venezia,” cried Sebastiano in answer to a question. I had never heard him use this taut, courteous tone before.
    A turbaned man leaned over the side of the galley, his shadow falling over us. He was dressed in trousers, fluttering sea-blue silk, and had a wide belt with a buckle of bronze. He stretched an arm.
    â€œCavaliere,” cried our captain, hitching his belt. “Inglese.”
    Two or three of the men in dazzling turbans gestured, and their own captain chuckled.
    â€œThey admire the redness of your hair,” Sir Nigel told Miles. “Like sunrise. Or a sunset.”
    â€œDo you speak Mussulman, my lord?” asked Miles in a raspy voice.
    â€œThey are speaking a sort of Venetian, which anyone can understand. Look—they are admiring you, Edmund,” said Nigel. “They say you look every inch a fighting man.”

chapter FIFTEEN
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    â€œWhy didn’t they board and kill us all?” I asked.
    â€œThey wouldn’t want to wet their swords with the likes of us:‘ Sir Nigel laughed. ”That ship was out of Constantinople. Those men are friendly to the Venetians, and sometimes help Christians reach the Holy Land.”
    â€œThey betray their own Infidel brothers?” I asked.
    â€œIt is strange,” admitted Nigel. “There is no understanding what men raised under the sun will do. Perhaps heat makes them all half mad.”
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