“I see.”
“Are you shocked?”
“No, only...” Pausing, he turned fully toward her. She halted as well, wondering why he looked so troubled.
“What of your mother’s family?” he asked. “Your mother herself?”
“She died when I was ten. Jason and I moved about a great deal. He was always needed somewhere. My grandmother lives in Gjirokastra, but the others are all dead.”
Now Jason as well, she thought, and the ache sped swiftly from her heart to catch in her throat. She resumed walking. “That was all long ago,” she said tightly. “Let us speak of something else.”
As it happened, they’d no time to change the subject Varian had so thoughtlessly introduced. Their approach speedily attracted notice, and in minutes all of Rrogozhina rushed out to welcome them.
There was a great deal more to the village than Varian had guessed. He was quickly surrounded by a crowd of men, on whose fringes stood another crowd of women and children, all of them talking at once and never uttering a word he could understand. Nor could Petro, evidently, who complained that the dialect was impossible.
Varian’s head pounded and his ears rang. He was tired and hungry, and so filthy he wanted to crawl out of his skin. Had Esme not taken charge, he might well have sat right down in the mud and wept.
As she’d predicted, the villagers took no notice of the ragged boy Esme appeared to be, and nearly trampled her as they swarmed about Varian. She doggedly elbowed her way back to his side, however, and in minutes had fully obtained their attention.
Less than an hour later, thanks to her, Varian was lowering his aching frame into a large wooden laundry tub filled with steaming water.
The tub stood in the central washing room of a cluster of connected cottages. These belonged to the extended family of his host, Maliq. Beyond, in the kitchen, Varian heard the chatter of women’s voices as they prepared a feast to honor his lordship. Closer to hand, in the small passage just outside the doorway, Petro stood, dutifully brushing his master’s clothes.
Most of Varian’s wardrobe remained on the ship. None of the crew had proved insane enough to accompany them for any price, and three people, on foot, could only carry so much. Which meant that Varian possessed exactly three changes of linen, one coat, one heavy cloak, and two pairs of trousers.
Though accustomed to changing several times a day, Varian had thought he’d manage adequately for the day or two it would take to reach Tepelena. It was not as though he expected to attend soirees on a regular basis. He had never dreamed the journey would involve several tons of mud and enough crawling creatures to fill Westminster Abbey.
He was soaping his neck and contemplating the tragic condition of his expensive shirts when Esme burst through the doorway, stopped dead, then hastily backed out.
Petro’s roar of laughter rang through the passage.
“Son of a jackal!” she shouted. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“A thousand pardons, little one,” came the chuckling answer. “I thought you were in a great hurry to wash his back.”
“That is not amusing,” she snapped. “Also, you are a very poor servant to let someone interrupt your master at his bath. Have you no respect for his modesty?”
“Modesty?” Petro echoed. “Y’Allah, half the women of Italy have seen his—”
“Petro,” Varian called out sharply.
Petro hastened to the doorway.
“Yes, master?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, master.”
The passage fell deadly quiet.
Varian quickly finished his bath, threw on the immense robe his hostess had left for him, and called them both inside.
Esme entered and, without looking at him, gathered up the towels he’d thrown on the floor and draped them over the tub handles. Then she sat down upon the floor in her usual cross-legged position and studied her hands.
Petro stood cringing by the door.
“You will apologize, Petro, for your tasteless prank,” Varian said. “Even now, our young friend must be devising ways to get even, and I had much rather not be caught in the middle, thank you.”
Petro promptly dropped to his knees before her and commenced banging his head on the floor in an exaggerated salaam. “A thousand thousand pardons, little one,” he said abjectly. “May I be forever cursed, may my limbs rot and fall off, my—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “It is not as though I have never seen a man without his shirt before.” As Petro hastily rose and resumed his dignity, she looked up at Varian, and a faint tinge of rose washed her cheeks. “All I saw were your shoulders and that was hardly for a moment, and—”
“And it’s a very deep tub,” Varian said.
The rose deepened. “So it is. Also, my mind was altogether elsewhere, I promise you, or I should never have rushed in upon you in that mannerless way. Did I not order the bath myself? But I forgot, because—”
“Because you were in a great hurry to tell me something, I think.” Varian crouched before her. “What was it?”
She gave a quick glance at the doorway, then turned back to Varian and whispered, “Esme has been killed.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rrogozhina had word days ago of the abduction. That is why they all rushed out to welcome you, and why they fall all over themselves to make you comfortable.”
“So it must be,” Petro agreed. “I was much amazed to see all the women come out, with the little ones.”
“But days ago?” Varian asked. “That’s impossible. How—”
“In Albania, word flies through the air, like the birds,” she said.
“Aye, master,” Petro eagerly put in before she could continue. “They cry out from one mountain to the next. A great, ear-breaking shriek it is. And such faces they make—”
“Never mind that. What about your—about Esme being killed?” Varian asked her.
“Bajo sent word, in the manner Petro tells you, that Jason was murdered and an English lord’s son taken by bandits,” she explains. “But Bajo also reported that Esme was killed in the villains’ attack. Do you see how clever he was? By now word has surely reached the villains who sought me—that is, Esme—and—”
“And so there won’t be any more abduction attempts.”
“Now you’ve no need to be uneasy,” she said confidently. “All is as I told you—even better. No one will guess I am not who I pretend to be, and the people will make your way easy. Further south they are doubtless looking for Percival, or have already found him and are keeping him safe. Also, by now the villains must surely be fleeing both Ali’s and their own master’s wrath.”
About this time, some thirty miles south of Rrogozhina, several unhappy villains were arguing in harsh whispers while a twelve-year-old boy slept nearby. Half the party felt he should simply be abandoned where he was. Even now, Ali Pasha’s men might be on their trail. The other half argued that the boy merely represented an unfortunate mistake. If he came to harm, however, even Ismal could not protect them. Besides, the child had given no trouble—except when anyone touched his leather bag. Since it proved to contain only rocks, of no value whatsoever, they concluded he was a trifle unhinged by the recent excitement.
“Only a mile west is the abode of a priest,” Mehmet pointed out. “We can leave the boy with him.”
“Aye, you need a priest badly enough,” said Ymer. “That game piece the master gave you is cursed. Since we got it, there has been nothing but trouble. We go to the house, the girl is gone. We hasten to the shore, and half of Durres waits, armed. Two of my cousins are killed, and we carry away an English boy, a lord’s son, by mistake. Now the Red Lion is dead, and his daughter, and we will be blamed for everything. Ali will kill us by inches.”
The mention of curses made the group uneasier still.
“Bury it,” one suggested.