Read Online Behind the Veil by Linda Chaikin - Free Book Online

now if I did not. And, unfortunately, I have several enemies sworn to my death.” He then reached under his cloak and pulled out the half tunic.
    Rainald’s white teeth showed beneath his slim black mustache. Rainald drew a Damascus dagger and cut the tunic in two. “Friend, my ship is yours, my wine, and my sword—but in Constantinople, the beautiful women are mine.”
    “No contest, my Captain. There is but one for me.”
    Rainald refilled his glass and raised a brow at the wine left untouched by Tancred. He looked at him questioningly.
    “I took a vow of restraint when a boy at Monte Casino. Have you any water?”
    “Water!” Rainald grimaced.
    Tancred laughed and caught up a water-skin hanging on a hook on the cabin wall. “With lions sniffing my trail, it is wise to remain alert.”
    “Ah, but you are safe aboard my ship.” Rainald shrugged, sank into his captain’s chair and propped his boots. He grew serious, watching Tancred, who leaned into the wall drinking from the water-skin.
    “When was the last time you changed this water?” Tancred mocked.
    “I don’t recall the month…”
    “So I thought.”
    “So you are a Norman,” Rainald stated reflectively. “We Venetians know about the Norman conquest of Italy. From what part do you come?”
    “From Apulia, in Sicily.”
    “I know Sicily well. Count Roger rules.”
    “We are distantly related.”
    “Your father was a shipmaster?”
    “Somewhat. Mainly, he was a warring lord in service to Count Roger.”
    “The brother of Bohemond? He hopes to take Antioch, does he not?”
    “As do all the western princes,” Tancred said, “Including Count Raymond and Duke Godfrey.”
    “But Count Roger did not come on the expedition to retake Jerusalem. Why did he remain in Sicily?”
    “He is not the restless adventurer that Bohemond is.”
    “And your father? Did he also remain in service to Count Roger?”
    “My father is dead. I have an adoptive father—my uncle Rolf Redwan, seigneur of the Castle of Hohms.”
    “Ah! And your journey now, where does it take you?”
    Tancred explained about the assassin, how his other uncle, Walter of Sicily sought him, and the treachery of Philip the Noble and Lady Irene.
    “Betrayers!” Rainald said with loathing.
    “And you?” Tancred inquired.
    “First, I go to the Genoese quarter of Constantinople,” Rainald said. “I must deliver weapons  to the Venetians.”
    “The weapons below?”
    “You saw them?”
    “I had hoped to borrow one. I couldn’t get near them long enough to accomplish it.”
    “After delivery,” Rainald went on, “I bring a report to the military in Constantinople.”
    Tancred told how he had once served in the imperial cavalry at the guard castle of Herion. “But you—you do seem to me the military type.”
    “I cannot help my elegant flair,” Rainald said, brushing imaginary lint from his sleeve. “Have you been long a slave to the wretched baron?”
    “I have wasted months I could not lose!”
    Tancred pressed him for news of the western knights. “When I left, the princes had defeated the Red Lion outside Nicaea.”
    “They are journeying south across the Amanus Mountains of northern Syria toward Antioch.”
    Tancred thought of just how treacherous the mountain pass was. His uncle Rolf had told him how he had crossed it, losing his horse and a guide. There were miles of nothing but rock, intolerable heat, and no water.
    “They are lacking sufficient food and water,” Rainald said. “News arrived of many dying on the crossing, and mules and supplies are lost. They should arrive at the walls of Antioch around October if they make it.”
    “A long siege will also deplete their food supplies.”
    “That is where we noble Genoese come in. With the western knights threatened with famine, it is important to capture the small port of St. Symeon in order to bring in supplies. That, my friend, is left to me and others.”
    Tancred’s estimation of the man climbed. The