A Knight in Central Park(75)

“Looks like our friend drank from the wrong cup.” Joe bent down and picked Sebastiano up. After Susan prepared a straw bed by the hearth, Joe laid him there.

“He’s going to need a few hours to sleep it off. But right now it looks like I’m going to need your help again.”

“What can I do?” Susan asked.

“I need my cloak. Do you know where Alexandra might have packed it?”

“’Tis with the rest of the blankets in the stable with the horses. I’ll return shortly.”

While Susan ran off, Joe grabbed a cloth from the kitchen. Making quick use of his pocketknife, he poked two holes in the rag, and then tied it about his face. Rebecca had followed him, and she cocked her head as she looked at him.

“With more time and a good seamstress we could do better. But under the circumstances I do believe this will have to do.”

Rebecca gave him a tentative smile, and he found himself thinking what a brave girl she was for one so young. Her mother was killed before her eyes, her father left without a word, and here she was, only six, following her siblings through unfamiliar territory.

Joe knelt down on bended knee and took the mask off. “Everything’s going to be all right, do you know that?”

She nodded.

“Well good. You’re a very brave young girl.”

By the time Susan returned with his cape, he and Rebecca had returned to the main room. Joe spotted a fine looking sword hanging to the right of the hearth, above a detailed tapestry of men during a hunt. He went to the kitchens where the innkeeper was soaking sheets and tablecloths in a wooden trough filled with ashes and caustic soda. Joe followed her to an iron cauldron in the kitchen. “That sword in the other room that hangs near the hearth...would you be interested in selling it?”

“Nay,” she said without looking at him, “’Twas a gift from a kindly nobleman who has long since passed away. I could not possibly part with such a fine weapon.”

From where he stood, Joe watched as Susan reached into Sebastiano’s sack. With excitement on her face, she came quickly to his side and offered the innkeeper four copper shillings for the sword.

“Double that,” the woman said, “and the sword is yours for the keeping.”

Susan happily obliged, handing the woman a pile of coins before making her way back to the hearth.

Joe followed her. “Where do you suppose Sebastiano got all of those coins?”

“If I had to guess,” she said matter-of-factly as she placed the cape about Joe’s shoulders, “I’d say those coins had something to do with his eagerness to help us.”

“Sebastiano is the thief?”

“Aye, but a thief with integrity.”

“The tie is broken,” she said as if it didn’t bother her overly much that her brother and sister had been carted off in Sebastiano’s place. “But my mother’s broach should do well to hold your cloak in place.”

Joe leaned low so that she could pin the cape in place. “So tell me how one can be a thief with integrity?”

She pinned the cape, then watched him take the sword from the wall. He stepped back so Susan could take a look at him.

“Sebastiano only steals from the thieves themselves. And do you know what he plans to do with the money?”

Joe shook his head.

“He will return every copper shilling to the people from whom it was stolen.”

“How do you know this?” Joe asked.

“He told me.”

Joe raised a brow.

She shrugged and then examined his attire. “’Tis perfect. You best be off.” She ushered him toward the door. “Are you certain you won’t be needing my help?”

“No. Stay here with Rebecca. Keep her safe.”

Sebastiano stirred in his sleep. Joe eyed him, suddenly worried about leaving Susan alone with the boy. “Susan,” he said, turning to her.

“Do not fret,” she said as if she were thirty instead of sixteen. “We will be fine until you return. You will return, will you not?”

It pained him to hear her ask such a question, but he didn’t blame her. He’d done nothing but grumble since he’d arrived in this world, and Susan had been trying hard to keep her and her siblings from becoming a burden. “The innkeeper has promised to let you and Rebecca stay on until I return with your sister...both of your sisters.”

She grinned.

“I will return for you and Rebecca. I promise you that.”