Isle of Blood and Stone (Isle of Blood and Stone #1)(15)
Elias’s work chamber was as he’d left it, filled with globes, sundials, and, to anyone but him, a seemingly endless collection of compasses. Dry compasses and wet compasses. Crude compasses fashioned from halved coconut shells. Another set within an ivory box. There were maps everywhere, framed on walls or rolled into teetering pyramids upon every surface. A single candle burned on a table, but the chamber just beyond, his bedchamber, was brightly lit.
He found Basilio kneeling beside his open trunk, feeding his clothes into the fire. Elias could not help a laugh. “Those are usable still,” he said in greeting, tossing his carrier onto the bed.
When Elias had moved from the family home into the castle, Basilio had come with him. Reluctantly. Elias’s mother had known that if left to his own whims, her son would gladly spend his days in what she called his “mapper’s rags,” frayed clothing stained with ancient paint and charcoal dust, and bring her an everlasting shame. Basilio had accepted his new responsibilities with the squared shoulders and stoicism of a man wrongfully condemned.
Basilio continued to feed the flames. He was several years older than Elias, short and round-faced, as neatly dressed as Elias was not. He said, “There are washerwomen in Hellespont. Seamstresses, menders . . .” He glanced across the chamber at Elias and closed his eyes briefly. “There are people to trim your hair. Surely it did not need to come to this.”
Elias ran a hand down his face, so rough it could sand driftwood, and offered the same words he used whenever he returned from off island. “Apologies, Basilio. I’ll try to do better next time.”
Basilio sighed, knowing he was being humored. “Welcome home, Lord Elias,” he said. “Supper or a bath. Which would you like first?”
At the word bath, Elias raised one arm and sniffed, rearing back in disgust. Basilio was already heading toward the adjacent bathing chamber when Elias said, “A bath.”
For Elias, the long night was not over. Basilio had long since retired to his own chambers one level below when his master dressed in dark clothing, grabbed his carrier and his dagger, and headed out into the night. Early summer brought with it warmer days, but nightfall still carried a chill, and he was left wishing he had thought to bring a cloak.
At the castle gates, he ducked beneath the portcullis just as it began a slow, rattling descent. When one of the guards called down a warning, “Lord Elias, the gates will be closed until sunrise,” Elias raised a hand in acknowledgment, said “Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” and continued on his way.
It was for the best. The angry words he’d thrown at Mercedes bothered him, and even now it was tempting to steal away to her wing of the castle and pound on her door. He kicked at a rock, sent it spinning down the street. Better the gates were locked behind him. Better he stayed away tonight.
Like most large cities, Cortes’s parishes were shaped by profession. In one quarter, he passed the shuttered storefronts of fabric sellers and purse makers, hatters and glove makers. In another, the goldsmiths and silversmiths. Rings and necklaces would be on proud display in the daylight hours, alongside delicate cups and bowls painted with images of the sea: sirens, serpents, a storm-tossed ship. Near the harbor, merchants catered to travelers by selling maps and compasses and the services of guides and translators.
He wandered through narrow, mazy lanes, guided by the moon and the flickering of candlelight in the windows. A solitary figure in the night. Or nearly so. As he turned down one street, a dark form held up a wall, eyeing him from the shadows. Elias placed a hand on the hilt of his dagger; he made sure the stranger saw him do it. “I would not try it,” he advised, and after a brief, considering moment, his would-be robber melted back into the stones.
After a time, he found himself on the edge of town in the parish of St. Medina, home to many of the island’s noble families. The streets were wider here, cleaner, with high sandstone walls shielding the luxury within. He stopped before one wall and ran a hand along the stone. The notches were where he remembered. Grabbing hold, he climbed up and over, dropping lightly to his feet. A large house rose before him, windows shuttered and dark. A fountain trickled quietly in the courtyard. Circling the house, he made his way around to the back and let himself in, expecting to feel his way about in blackness. To his surprise, the kitchen fireplace gave off a faint glow. Immediately, he felt a knife at his jugular.
“I’m tempted to slice your gullet first, then ask questions second, thief.” The voice was the scraping of a blade against stone. As familiar to Elias as his own.
“Papa, it’s me.”
“Elias?” The knife disappeared. “What are you doing, skulking in the dark?”
“I wasn’t skulking. I didn’t want to wake—” he managed, before his mother’s husband grabbed him up in a bone-crushing embrace.
Lord Isidore was del Mar’s Lord Exchequer, principal guardian of the royal finances. He was a big man, taller even than Elias and twice his width. A full, bushy beard showed more black than gray. His stepfather was considered a stern, intimidating figure to many. But most did not have the pleasure of seeing him as he was now, dressed in a voluminous white night robe with lace at the sleeves. He had come into Elias’s life when the boy was nearly five, wooing both mother and son with such single-minded determination that Sabine, Lady Isidore, laughingly referred to their courtship as a siege.