Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(38)
“Gracias,” Rima murmured as he departed. She closed the book gently and returned it to its place on her desk.
While she transferred the box’s contents to a nearby table, Rima’s eyes strayed back to the little volume in its simple leather cover. In four hundred years, would the only proof of her existence be a page from her calendar, a shopping list, and a scrap of paper with her grandmother’s recipe for alfajores on it, all placed in a file labeled “Anonymous, of no importance” and stored in an archive no one ever visited?
Such dark thoughts were bound to be unlucky. Rima shivered and touched the hand-shaped amulet of the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima. It hung around her neck on a leather cord and had been passed down among the women of her family for as long as anyone could remember.
“Khamsa fi ainek,” she whispered, hoping her words would ward off any evil spirit she might have unwittingly called.
Sept-Tours and the Village of Saint-Lucien
Chapter Eight
"The usual place?” Gallowglass asked quietly as he put down his oars and raised the solitary sail. Though it would be more than four hours before the sun rose, other craft were visible in the darkness. I picked out the shadowed outlines of another sail, a lantern swinging from a post in the stern of a neighboring vessel.
“Walter said we were going to Saint-Malo,” I said, my head turning in consternation. Raleigh had accompanied us from the Old Lodge to Portsmouth and had piloted the boat that took us to Guernsey. We’d left him standing on the dock near the village of Saint-Pierre-Port. He could go no farther—not with a price on his head in Catholic Europe.
“I remember well enough where Raleigh told me to go, Auntie, but he’s a pirate. And English. And he’s not here. I’m asking Matthew.”
“‘Immensi tremor oceani,’” Matthew whispered as he contemplated the heaving seas. Staring out across the black water, he had all the expression of a carved figurehead. And his reply to his nephew’s question was odd—the trembling of the immense ocean. I wondered if I had somehow misunderstood his Latin.
“The tide will be with us, and it is closer to Fougères by horse than to Saint-Malo.” Gallowglass continued as though Matthew were making sense. “She’ll be no colder on the water than on land in this weather, and still plenty of riding before her.”
“And you will be leaving us.” It wasn’t a question but a pronouncement of fact. Matthew’s eyelids dropped. He nodded. “Very well.”
Gallowglass drew in the sail, and the boat changed from a southerly to a more easterly course. Matthew sat on the deck next to me, his back against the curved supports of the hull, and drew me into the circle of his arms so that his cloak was wrapped around me.
True sleep was impossible, but I dozed against Matthew’s chest. It had been a grueling journey thus far, with horses pushed to the limit and boats commandeered. The temperature was frigid, and a thin layer of frost built up on the nap of our English wool. Gallowglass and Pierre kept up a steady patter of conversation in some French dialect, but Matthew remained quiet. He responded to their questions yet kept his own thoughts hidden behind an eerily composed mask.
The weather changed to a misty snow around dawn. Gallowglass’s beard turned white, transforming him into a fair imitation of Santa Claus. Pierre adjusted the sails at his command, and a landscape of grays and whites revealed the coast of France. No more than thirty minutes later, the tide began to race toward the shore. The boat was lifted up on the waves, and through the mist a steeple pierced the clouds. It was surprisingly close, the base of the structure obscured by the weather. I gasped.
“Hold tight,” Gallowglass said grimly as Pierre released the sail.
The boat shot through the mist. The call of seagulls and the slap of water against rock told me we were nearing shore, but the boat didn’t slow. Gallowglass jammed an oar into the flooding tide, angling us sharply. Someone cried out, in warning or greeting.
“Il est le chevalier de Clermont!” Pierre called back, cupping his hands around his mouth. His words were met with silence before scurrying footfalls sounded through the cold air.
“Gallowglass!” We were heading straight for a wall. I scrabbled for an oar to fend off certain disaster. No sooner had my fingers closed around it than Matthew plucked it from my grasp.
“He’s been putting in at this spot for centuries, and his people for longer than that,” Matthew said calmly, holding the oar lightly in his hands. Improbably, the boat’s bow took another sharp left and the hull was broadside to slabs of rough-hewn granite. High above, four men with hooks and ropes emerged to snare the boat and hold it steady. The water level continued to rise with alarming speed, carrying the boat upward until we were level with a small stone house. A set of stairs climbed into invisibility. Pierre hopped onto the landing, talking fast and low and gesturing at the boat. Two armed soldiers joined us for a moment, then sped off in the direction of the stairs.
“We have arrived at Mont Saint-Michel, madame.” Pierre held out his hand. I took it and stepped from the boat. “Here you will rest while milord speaks with the abbot.”
My knowledge of the island was limited to the stories swapped by friends of mine who sailed every summer around the Isle of Wight: that it was surrounded at low tide by quicksand and at high tide by such dangerous currents that boats were crushed against the rocks. I looked over my shoulder at our tiny boat and shuddered. It was a miracle that we were still alive.