The Leopard Sword by Michael Cadnum Page A

and featureless. Captain Giorgio poured a cup of red wine from the goatskin he kept near the mast, and lifted it in salute to the far-off coast.
    â€œItalia!” he exclaimed.
    My heart quickened.
    Somewhere on that landscape ruled the lord pope. The city of Rome, the capital of Christendom, with its myriad holy sites, was shielded by distance and sea haze from our hungry eyes.After Jerusalem, Rome was the most sacred city in the world. Every Christian dreamed of a pilgrimage to its holy places.The chains Saint Peter had worn in prison were kept in Rome, and the city boasted the magnificent and hideous Colosseum of legend, where holy martyrs had suffered lions to eat their still-living flesh, to the glory of God.
    The wind had been bitter but strong, driving us under a clear sky. As we bucked the swells and began our journey north, along the long stretch of Italian mainland, the sky was rutted with cloud. The moon winked and vanished behind this scudding gray, and the sun rose scarlet and oval, giving no heat and little light.
    Soon, soon, said a guttering whisper.
    The ship wallowed, shrugged off rushing waves, and then leaned into them, bobbing away from the sea, turning into it—trying every tactic, like a weary swordsman, to endure the pounding water.
    I took heart at the crashing foam, and Edmund smiled through the sling stones of water. It was harsh weather, but this was, after all, an adventure.The storm drove every other thought, and every sorrow, from our souls. We were happy again, in our ignorance of the ways of the sea. We had faith in the mariners, and in the ship.
    The sailors worried the rigging, and used heavy wooden mauls to drive stops—canvas wadding—into gaps where the ship’s timbers began to part.

TWENTY
    We ran aground one morning.
    Sailors swore by Our Lady, and we all breathed prayers of our own, but the captain swung his knotted rope, cried out orders with the air of a man who was unconcerned. He caught my eye and called through the whistling rain something about land and sea and ships, how no one could predict a storm.
    But as the day wore on, the vessel began to labor, stuck fast to the bottom.The captain, no longer putting on even a demonstration of calm, drove his men with a long ox whip. Men in the hold called out, straining and gasping, frantically working the pumps.
    Rannulf made his way through the rushing foam. “The ship is breaking up,” he said.
    â€œDo you believe so?” asked Sir Nigel. He cocked his head. “Yes, you may be right, Rannulf, by my faith.”
    Sir Nigel and Sir Rannulf talked about ships, taking turns speaking loudly into each other’s ears against the shriek of the wind.They agreed that even the strongest oak beam can take a downward force more successfully than a weight from the side. Speaking as though they had hours to analyze and compare, they admired the Genoans’ vigor, but agreed that the captain had more bluster than ability.
    Years of war study, planning siege engines and catapults, and finding out through experience which lances shatter and which can endure, gave them a midwife’s calm eye for trouble. Edmund and I clung to ropes, and at last I cried out, “What can we do?”
    â€œDo?” Sir Nigel gave one of his manly, exasperating laughs, perhaps joking at his own tough-mindedness. “If Heaven calls us, we’ll go.”
    Rannulf was drenched, rain and brine streaming from his beard. “Go get our war-kits and our safe-chest, both of you. Hurry!”
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    The hold stank.
    The sour odor of dank cheeses, smoked fish, and moldy biscuit rose around us from the black water. Sergeants and squires elbowed, scrambling in the near dark. Sailors cursed; two men came to blows. Other knights had given the same command, it seemed. Body was wedged against body, but with a willed patience, most squires manhandled their masters’ war gear up and out of the hold without bloodshed.
    At midday