Devil's Lair by David Wisehart Read Free Book Online Page A

it.
    “What is that line for?”
William asked.
    “Bookkeeping. Two columns.
Debits on the sinister, credits on the dexter.”
    “Ah. Of course.”
    “This was my father’s
ledger,” Giovanni said. “I use it now for poetry, though as you can see I
haven’t—”
    Marco stirred.
    William tucked the glass
lentil into his pouch and went to the wounded man.
    To Nadja he said, “Get some
water.”
    Slowly the knight returned
to himself. He was dressed in one of Giovanni’s undertunics, which was
stretched tight across his skin. His eyes blinked against the morning sun. He
coughed. A dry, hacking sound. Nadja gave William a leather costrel. The friar
cradled Marco’s head in one arm as he brought the water to the man’s cracked
lips. Marco drank eagerly.
    When he was finished, the
knight looked up. “Thank you.”
    “Thank God,” said William.
“You are a difficult man to save.”
     
    That afternoon Giovanni dug
fresh charcoal from the kiln as Nadja fussed over the wounded knight. Marco da
Roma reclined a few feet away with his head resting in the girl’s lap. Nadja
held a mazar bowl to his lips, from which the knight slurped an infusion of
willow bark in small wine.
    William still savored his
breakfast. He ate less than most men, and took longer doing it. Each spoon of
porridge was a thesis much debated between his teeth before the old philosopher
consented to swallow. A carrot had kept him occupied from Viterbo to Rome. An
apple was the work of an afternoon. William ended each meal reluctantly, as if
it were his last. At this pace, he would soon be right.
    The charcoal kiln proved a
moderate success. Digging through the warm dirt, Giovanni discovered that only
one of the hazel sticks had not burned; three burned too hot; five charred into
coal. These last he whittled into a new set of drawing sticks. His dagger was
dull but did the job.
    Nadja set aside her bowl of
tisane, then wiped Marco’s lips with a sleeve of the borrowed undertunic.
Giovanni winced.
    “I could use a shave,” the
knight said, running a hand across his cheek.
    My pleasure, Giovanni thought, but confined his
shaving to the black stick now throttled in his hand.
    “Vanity is a sin,” Nadja
said.
    The knight beamed at her.
“But not one of the fun ones.”
    It occurred to Giovanni that
the real Knights Templar never shaved. Instead of saying this aloud he changed
the subject. “Terrible battle. So many lost. I wonder who won.”
    Marco propped himself up on
his elbows. The undertunic ripped open at the armpits.
    Rot in Hell, Giovanni thought, but what he said was,
“I’m curious. Who were you fighting for? The queen or the king? The Neapolitans
or the Hungarians?”
    “I fight for honor.”
    “Yes, but whose?”
    “My own.”
    “A mercenary?”
    “I am what you see.”
    “No man is what we see.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Giovanni Boccaccio. The
poet. Boccaccio. You’ve probably heard of me.”
    “No.”
    Giovanni turned to William.
“Are you sure he’s Italian?”
    Marco leaned forward, too
close, and fixed Giovanni with an icy glare. “Are you sure you’re a poet?”
    Giovanni saw the challenge in the
Templar’s eyes. Smiling, the poet set aside the stick and the dagger, then
slapped the black dust from his hands. He rose to the bait, and to his feet. He
brushed the earth from hose and hind, tilted his hat to the proper angle,
cleared his throat as if to quiet the court at Naples, and recited a poem he’d
written for Gian Barillus, King Robert’s seneschal.
     
     
    Be a soldier, a knight and not a knave.
    Chivalric, fearless, dashing, debonair.
    Be a soldier. There’s glory in the
glaive
    When weapons clang with sanguinary
flair,
    To brave the contest and contest the
brave.
    Be a soldier. Let cannons wake the air
    To sear the blood-red sky with crack
and fire
    To rattle heaven’s gate till you retire.
     
    Be a soldier, the hero of the age.
    The glory goes to those who bear the
brunt,
    The paragons upon the poet’s