Read Online The Sultan's Eyes by Kelly Gardiner - Free Book Online

ship. People push you overboard and all sorts of rubbish.’
    ‘Nothing so dramatic will happen this time,’ Al-Qasim assured him.
    ‘And the bouncing never ends,’ said Willem.
    ‘Never?’ asked Valentina. ‘Really? How do you bear it?’
    ‘You don’t,’ said Willem. ‘You just —’
    ‘Thank you, Will,’ I said. ‘The signora doesn’t need to hear the details at the moment.’
    ‘Why are you smiling?’ Willem asked me. ‘You hate ships as much as I do.’
    ‘But this ship,’ I said, nearly laughing with the incredible wonder of it, ‘this ship will be sailing through the Aegean!’
    ‘That makes a difference?’
    ‘To me it does.’
    After all, I’d studied the ancient Greek world for most of my life, had read its stories and learned its language almost as early as I’d learned my own.
    ‘You have the salt water in your veins now,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘I regret that we cannot stop at Athens. If only you could see the Acropolis.’
    ‘Maybe one day I will.’
    ‘On the way back, perhaps?’ said Valentina.
    ‘Assuming that we do come back,’ said Willem.
    ‘Of course we will.’ I smiled as brightly as I could.
    ‘Come,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘Since we have so much time on our hands, I think instead of moping about, as the signora rightly says, it is time for a lesson.’
    ‘In what?’ Willem asked.
    ‘I hope this doesn’t make you too anxious,’ he said, pulling a dagger from his belt, ‘but I feel I should teach you how to use a knife in a fight, just in case you need to defend yourselves.’
    ‘Pah! Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Valentina. ‘I’m Venetian. I know how to wield a dagger.’
    ‘Me, too,’ said Willem.
    I chuckled. He glared at me.
    ‘Sorry, Will, but “I’m from Amsterdam, I know how to wield a dagger” doesn’t sound quite so threatening.’
    He snatched the silver knife from Al-Qasim. ‘Give it here.’
    Al-Qasim smiled and took a few careful steps back. ‘Very well. You may attack me.’
    ‘I’m not going to actually attack you,’ said Willem. ‘You’re a cripple. You might get injured.’ He slashed at the air. ‘I’m just going to show you a few tactics.’
    The next moment Willem was flat on his face on the deck with one arm twisted behind his back and Al-Qasim bearing down on it with all his weight. The dagger spun in circles on the deck, out of reach. I didn’t even see how it happened.
    ‘That hurts!’
    ‘How can it be so, when I am merely a cripple?’
    ‘I didn’t mean anything by that.’ Willem’s words came out in a burst, as if he was being strangled.
    Maybe he was. I don’t know. I was too busy laughing.
    Al-Qasim jumped to his feet and put out a hand to help Willem up.
    ‘I hope you have now learned a lesson?’
    ‘I certainly have,’ said Willem, bent over, trying to get some breath back into his lungs. ‘I’ll never call you a cripple again.’
    Al-Qasim laughed. ‘That is excellent news. But it wasn’t the lesson.’
    ‘Huh?’
    Al-Qasim kicked out and Willem’s legs crumpled underneath him. He sprawled on the deck, staring upwards.
    ‘The lesson,’ said Al-Qasim, ‘is that anyone can surprise you at any time, armed or unarmed.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Very well. Now we begin. All of you.’
    We trained every morning, learning different ways to hold and thrust a knife, movements to escape someone’s grasp, and even kicks and punches. Valentina took to it with a ferocious enthusiasm possibly linked to her plan to murder Fra Clement.
    ‘I’m not sure I could really punch someone hard enough to hurt them,’ I said one day to Al-Qasim.
    He stood before me, his shirt damp with sweat after a long bout with Willem. ‘You could, if you had to,’ he said. ‘But often it’s enough just to give them a surprise. If some man grabs at you, he won’t expect a young woman to fight back. If you shock him with a solid thump on the nose, that might allow time for you to run away.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ I said.
    ‘Or he might