Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gaspar did not go to Isobelle at Compline, leaving her to pray alone as he’d promised. His past always made him feel foolish, and he’d gone to sleep feeling decidedly mean. The kindest thing to do for her was to allow her to sleep. And when she woke, he’d apologize.
Dawn was not so considerate of him, however, and the pale blue light woke him as surely as a trumpet’s blast. He rose to face his day of penance and decided to walk the beach and practice the apology he must deliver with her morning meal.
Perhaps he would begin by explaining that it was his heart that was the true captive here.
The bars that held him prisoner were long curled strands of dark red hair, and even as he watched her sleep through the intricately designed screen, he was on the inside, looking out.
He had no gate, and no key. He would be bound to her forever, even if she left him.
The sky was clear and empty but for a gull that had much to complain about. His fellows fled the beach and joined him, and together they went in search of something that apparently could not be found on Isola del Silenzio, his Island of Silence.
He strolled to the western point and found the tide had washed nothing interesting onto the shore. The south beach had nothing more than a thin offering of shells. There was something new on the east side, however. A large bit of dark fur. Perhaps a remnant of what was once a sea lion.
He neared it cautiously, not knowing if some small animal might still be alive enough to strike out at him. But as he bent over it, he realized it was hair—Isobelle’s hair!
He spun in the sand and looked at the tower, wishing, as he ran, that he could see through the stones.
With no protection on his feet, he paid close attention to his footing, as thus found another clump of hair.
He snatched it up midstride and continued toward the arched doors.
He stopped dead when he noticed the second lock had not been moistened by the sea spray, but by blood.
The ever-present wind brought a cry to his ears, but it was not the gulls; it was Isobelle, sobbing. A gust tugged at the dark red hair in his hand as if it were determined to take it from him.
“Isobelle.” It was both a whisper and a prayer, and he repeated it with every step as he ran to her.
James Ferguson, former MI6 agent for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, was pleased to find that people in the fifteenth century were much more trusting than people from the twenty-first. He had no need of Google.
Everyone knew everything about everyone.
He supposed that was what happened when there was no telly to watch.
These people simply watched their neighbors for entertainment.
A Scotsman looking for another Scotsman was nothing to raise a brow over.
However, a Scotsman looking for a Scotswoman who’d recently been arrested as a witch was another matter entirely.
These Venetians were quick to tell all they knew and quicker still to offer consolation in the form of food.
Wonderful food. And to a growing lad of six feet eight inches, they were generous with their plates and their pity.
“Of course, you’ll wish to know where she’s buried,” said one woman with a sly wink, “only there is no grave to find.”
Another was quick to join in, ladling the last of her rich soup into James’ empty bowl. “And not because she perished, I’d vow.”
“I was getting to that,” the first complained. “No one witnessed the execution of a red-haired Scotswoman. No one—”
“Some say she disappeared in a puff of smoke the moment God’s Dragon put her into a boat.”
“I was getting to that as well!”
The women began to bicker in Italian, forgetting he only spoke French and could not understand more than a word or two.
“Ladies, please,” he said in French, reminded them of his limited tongue. “What is this about a dragon? God’s Dragon?”
“Gaspar Dragotti,” the first woman whispered, looking around her kitchen as if this Dragotti might be lurking among the spices hanging from the ceiling beams. “Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice himself. He is the authority who arrested her. But she disappeared—”
“As soon as he put her upon the water!” The second woman hurried out of the reach of the first one.
“Did anyone see this?”
“Yes! Icarus was there. He saw it all.”
“Icarus?”
“The dragon’s servant. He swears the woman disappeared.”
“She spoke to the sharks!” The second woman lunged to the other side of the table just as her friend reached for her. “She threw herself into the water and called the sharks to come for the dragon. He and his men dared not go after her.”
The first woman folded her arms and glared at the one who kept blurting out the exciting parts of the story.
“So she drowned? Or was killed by sharks?” He needed to keep them focused on the details at hand.
“No.” The women looked at each other as if trying to remember the details. Eventually, they shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Icarus.”
James smiled. Finally, the lead he’d been waiting for. “Tell me. Where do I find this Icarus fellow?”