The Enchantress of Florence Read Free Page B

wound…?” Hauksbank threw his glass against a wall and drew his sword. “Scoundrel,” he said. “Answer me directly, or die.”
    The stowaway chose his words carefully. “My lord,” he said, “I am here, I now perceive, to offer myself to you as your factotum. It is true, however,” he added quickly, as the blade’s point touched his throat, “that I have a more distant purpose too. Indeed, I am what you might call a man embarked on a quest—a secret quest, what’s more—but I must warn you that my secret has a curse upon it, placed there by the most powerful enchantress of the age. Only one man may hear my secret and live, and I would not wish to be responsible for your death.”
    Lord Hauksbank of That Ilk laughed again, not an ugly laugh this time, a laugh of dispersing clouds and revenant sunshine. “You amuse me, little bird,” he said. “Do you imagine I fear your green-faced witch’s curse? I have danced with Baron Samedi on the Day of the Dead and survived his voodoo howls. I will take it most unkindly if you do not tell me everything at once.”
    “So be it,” began the stowaway. “There was once an adventurer-prince named Argalia, also called Arcalia, a great warrior who possessed enchanted weapons, and in whose retinue were four terrifying giants, and he had a woman with him, Angelica…”
    “Stop,” said Lord Hauksbank of That Ilk, clutching at his brow. “You’re giving me a headache.” Then, after a moment, “Go on.” “…Angelica, a princess of the blood royal of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane…” “Stop. No, go on.” “…the most beautiful…” “Stop.”
    Whereupon Lord Hauksbank fell unconscious to the floor.

    The traveler, almost embarrassed about the ease with which he had inserted the laudanum into his host’s glass, carefully returned the little wooden box of treasures to its hiding place, drew his particolored greatcoat about him, and hurried onto the main deck calling for help. He had won the coat at cards in a hand of
scarabocion
played against an astonished Venetian diamond merchant who could not believe that a mere Florentine could come to the Rialto and beat the locals at their own game. The merchant, a bearded and ringleted Jew named Shalakh Cormorano, had had the coat specially made at the most famous tailor’s shop in Venice, known as
Il Moro Invidioso
because of the picture of a green-eyed Arab on the shingle over its door, and it was an occultist marvel of a greatcoat, its lining a catacomb of secret pockets and hidden folds within which a diamond merchant could stash his valuable wares, and a chancer such as “Uccello di Firenze” could conceal all manner of tricks. “Quickly, my friends, quickly,” the traveler called in a convincing display of concern. “His lordship has need of us.”
    If, among this hardy crew of privateers-turned-diplomats, there were many narrow-eyed cynics whose suspicions were aroused by the manner of their leader’s sudden collapse, and who began to regard the newcomer in a manner not conducive to his good health, they were partly reassured by the obvious concern shown by “Uccello di Firenze” for Lord Hauksbank’s well-being. He helped to carry the unconscious man to his cot, undressed him, struggled with his pajamas, applied hot and cold compresses to his brow, and refused to sleep or eat until the Scottish milord’s health improved. The ship’s doctor declared the stowaway to be an invaluable aide, and on hearing that the crew went muttering and shrugging back to their posts.
    When they were alone with the insensate man, the doctor confessed to “Uccello” that he was baffled by the aristocrat’s refusal to awake from his sudden coma. “Nothing wrong with the man that I can see, praise God, except that he won’t wake up,” he said, “and in this loveless world it may be that it’s wiser to dream than to awake.”
    The doctor was a simple, battle-hardened individual named Praise-God Hawkins, a good-hearted