Page 154 of Dark Tides
He spread his hands. “Cara mia,neither of us knows, and the people who know don’t care. If he is not dead now, he will be soon.Ahimè,alas, if not now then later. Say a prayer for him, say good-bye to him.”
The order came to run the gangplank on board, cast off, and raise the sails as the barges released the ship and she moved into the deep-water channel south of Sant’ Erasmo. One by one, the barges took in their lines, and peeled off back to Venice. Sarah waited till the barges had left, and then went to the companionway and called up for permission to come on the quarterdeck.
“Aye, you can come up,” Captain Shore said; he was standing behind thepedotti,who still had command of the ship. The Captain was looking skywards, at his unfurling sails stretching to take the light wind. The moonlight was so bright it was like a silvery dawn, with mist rolling along the dark water.
“Captain Shore,” Sarah said quietly.
“Aye?” he said with a little impatience. He shouted an order to one of the crew who was reefing the sail.
“I know you have a great regard for my mother.”
She had caught his attention. “Deepest respect,” he said, embarrassed. “Not that she knows it. Not that I have given her any hint.”
“I know you would be very glad to tell my mother that you brought me safely home, from the Doge’s Palace, safe home to her.”
“Aye,” he said more cautiously.
“So if you were to lose me, in some mishap, I ask you to wait for me.”
“Eh?”
Unexpectedly, she reached up and pecked him on his cheek. “Don’t fail me,” she said.
“What?” he demanded, but she slipped away from him into the waist of the ship and reappeared at Felipe’s elbow.
“I want you to raise the alarm, two men overboard,” she said to him urgently.
“Sarah?”
“I can’t explain. Just give me a moment and then shout, ‘Man overboard—two men!’?”
He turned to her and saw that she was undoing the ties of her cape. He stared disbelieving, as she stripped it off and thrust it into his hands. She was wearing nothing underneath but her linen shift, which left her neck and shoulders bare; underneath she had a pair of boy’s breeches.
“Sarah?” he whispered. “What are…?”
Before he could say another word, his hands filled with her heavy traveling cape so he could not reach for her. She put two hands on the rail and vaulted, lithe as a boy, over the side of the ship, and he heard the splash down below, as she plunged into the icy water. “Sarah!” he shouted, and leaned out. He could see her head, dark as a seal in the moonlight, and then she disappeared.
“Sarah!” he shouted again. He raced to the companionway and seized a lantern, leaned out over the water. He could see nothing but a waste of water and the mudbanks and reed banks and sandbanks, a canal, a brackish pool, and then more water.
“Dio onnipotente,”he groaned. “Sarah!”
He turned and dashed to the stern of the ship. “Captain Shore?” he called up the companionway.
“Not now,” the Captain said grimly, and when Felipe put one foot on the stairs, he glared at him from under his impressive eyebrows and said: “Nobody comes on my quarterdeck without invitation.”
“I beg of you! It’s Sarah! She’s gone!” Felipe burst out. “Into the water.”
“You let her?”
“How was I to know?”
“You saw her?”
“That way!” Felipe gestured towards the lazaretto where the windows showed a few gleams of light from the different cells.
“Can she swim?”
“How should I know? Yes! She was swimming away from the ship.”
