Free The Leopard Sword by Michael Cadnum Page B

this.
    He considered a moment longer. “Would we?”
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    I woke often at night to the groaning of the ship, the sea hissing as we sped before the wind, and I could not tell if the cry I had just heard was one of our dwindling number of nanny goats, or something human.
    When I heard the squabbling voices that morning, I was not surprised. Perhaps some Crusader had in fact decided to threaten the crew into making for a nearby port.
    Some trouble had been steeping all this while, but as I climbed into the sunlight behind Edmund, I stopped in my tracks.
    Captain Giorgio held Osbert to the deck.

SEVENTEEN
    Osbert protested, “I have done nothing.”
    A sailor held up a purse, a leather money pouch, with a gash along the seam. He held up a short blade, too, the sort of sharp kitchen knife that is carried in the pocket with the point buried in a ball of wax.
    I had seen this knife in Osbert’s hand just days before, cutting an apple.
    â€œMy lords, I am guiltless,” piped Osbert.
    â€œEdmund, bring my sword,” said Nigel.
    â€œI’ll do it,” said Edmund.
    Sir Nigel turned to look at him.
    â€œHe’s my servant,” said Edmund, “brought by me from the battlefield. I’ll punish him myself.”
    Sir Nigel said, in a low voice, confiding and gentle, “You know what the punishment has to be?”
    Osbert gave out a high, crystalline wail, a keen sound that startled all of us into silence.
    â€œNo, good Edmund,” said Osbert at last. “Let Sir Nigel cut me, please—not you.”
    Edmund was gone, down into the hull. He returned with a sword in its black leather scabbard. He drew Sir Nigel’s blade, and looked to me without speaking.
    Rannulf and I seized Osbert, and were in the act of stretching out the servant’s arm against the deck when Osbert shifted, contracted his body, and forced it into a ball. Exasperated, Rannulf and I reached to grapple with him.
    Osbert sprang up and leaped onto the rail as a flume of spray streaked through the morning sun. He jumped.
    For an instant his head bobbed in the lacy foam of our wake.
    And then he vanished.

EIGHTEEN
    We never saw him again.
    In the hours following Osbert’s death, Edmund watched the sea. He peered into the ship’s wake, hurried from one rail to the other, and climbed to the limit of the bow, seeking a glimpse of his servant. At last he returned to the stern again, his head cocked, as though listening for Osbert’s voice, still expecting to see his face appearing out of the wind-scored swells.
    I joined him there beside the helmsman, a man tanned and wrinkled by the sun. Sir Nigel arrived to mark Edmund’s mood, and took the opportunity to remark on the distant islands.
    â€œGreek strongholds,” he said, to distract Edmund from his mourning. “Some of them were visited by the great knight Ulysses himself, in his legendary travels.”
    â€œUlysses sailed home through these waters?” I asked.
    â€œCertainly,” said Nigel, eager to distract Edmund with any sort of conversation. “And had his men turned into breed-boars by a famous witch. Although,” he added with a chuckle, “I believe many sailors are half pig already.”
    The wind was powerful and swept us onward, each fling of spray stinging our eyes. Sailors had searched the thin bedroll and cracked leather satchel, all of Osbert’s remaining possessions. Squires and knights alike exclaimed at the rings and brooches that appeared, small objects of value that their owners had thought lost or mislaid.
    â€œOsbert had my trust,” said Edmund, interrupting our attempts to entertain him with talk. Mi truste.
    â€œAnd mine,” I offered, but Edmund would only give me a pained smile.
    â€œLeave him to the saints,” said Sir Nigel.
    I wondered what the Heavenly Host would make of our bright-eyed, lively servant, and whether Our Lord would forgive him for his