The Book of the Lion by Michael Cadnum Page B

sword.
    When the official vessel, a sleek, black oar-driven craft, reached our ship, the men did not board at once. Even though this was a ship of Italian sailors, there was something wrong with our captain’s papers, the red seals and the yellow ribbons on the documents the wrong color, or illegible. Sebastiano laughed angrily, swept his arm at the sky, at the sea, at all of our expectant faces.
    A black kidskin sack was pressed into the hand of one of the men in the boat, with a show of apology, and a gesture of Sant’ Agnese in the prow.
    Each official gave the sack a toss, opened it, peered within. They looked around at the green harbor water, and the hundreds of ships, each waiting for a customs visit. A shrug. A long discussion about documents and Englishmen, knights and fools. There was no hurry—we could all stay like this while the Crusade was fought out to a conclusion far, far away.
    All aboard the Sant’ Agnese had to stand in a line while a Venetian surgeon’s apprentice examined our gums and the whites of our eyes, as though we were nanny goats at a market.
    Sebastiano kept up a running commentary, how brave we were, that Acre was under siege, time was running through our fingers. The head customs official reminded me of Alan, the Exchequer’s man. The pale Venetian stood, one hand on his hip, looking me up and down, and made a joke to one of his companions. They chuckled, added a quip of their own, and there was much laughter.
    â€œWhat are they saying?” I asked.
    â€œSomething lewd, I fear, Edmund,” and Sir Nigel with good humor. “This is a city of great vice.”
    Â 
    The city is a rambling, sea-moss-encrusted place, surrounded on all sides by water. I had never seen a more dismal town.
    If a man chose to walk off down one street to exercise his legs, he soon came to the end of the city, and stood at the edge of nothing but salt water. After so long aboard ship, I needed soil, and trees, and fields, and all I could find was bustling marketplace, and steps leading up, steps leading down, canals and water all around.
    â€œSomewhere in the city,” said Hubert, “are the bones of Saint Mark.”
    For some time I had the fervent hope that I could worship before these relics. But I lost my way. The marketplace was full of bins of yellow fruit called limones, a fruit smaller than a hen’s egg, with a thick yellow skin and large, uneven pores, like a tanner’s nose. One bite of the flesh of this fruit brings tears to the eyes. Caged yellow birds sang, the sweetest music I had ever heard, and the small birds pecked crumbs when I poked my fingers through the bars of their prisons. The bread for sale was white, with a good brown crust, but full of empty gaps and bubbles.
    Fine ale was not to be had, unless in the taverns where Bremen town sailors sat and sang songs no one else knew. Wine they had, sound wine, unmixed with water, and other, inferior vintages polluted with herbs. Many times I had seen wine merchants pilloried in my boyhood, for selling wine doctored with gum and resin. Here the Tuscan red wine was adulterated without fear of punishment. Women could be rented by the hour in the inns overlooking the large canal. The women I saw were like plucked chickens, all flesh and breast, with paint on their cheeks and around their eyes.
    Not that I took displeasure in the sight of them. I did envy Nigel when I saw the knight with two such companions, making way up a stone staircase. Rannulf perched in a corner of the tavern, tossing a pair of dice in his hand. He was listening to a squat, merry man in russet stockings. Miles sat beside him, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming.
    Rannulf listened to the man in russet stockings, turned to ask Miles something. Miles did not have to respond. Rannulf reached across the table, and popped the two dice into the jolly fellow’s mouth. Rannulf and his squire stood and left the tavern, looking with an