A Miracle of Love Page 8

  The Prince thanked them and picked up his reins and as they rode off they heard the fishermen talking about them and making complimentary remarks about Sacia.

  “The trouble with you,” the Prince murmured, “is that you are far too pretty!”

  Sacia laughed.

  “I am glad someone thinks so. I did not receive many compliments at home. But then my mother was an acknowledged beauty and my elder sister has been painted by several famous artists.”

  “Has anyone painted you, Sacia?”

  “Not yet, but I always hoped one of the artists who come to Venice would want to paint my portrait. But they are always too busy painting San Marco or the Rialto.”

  The Prince chuckled.

  “It’s a very sad story and they will continue to paint them long after you have joined the angels in Heaven.”

  “If I ever do join them, but by the time I die I may be sent to hell to do penance for my sins.”

  “Have you committed many?”

  “It will be considered a great sin by my family that I have run away and disappeared. I expect I will have to be penitent for that for the rest of my life.”

  “I doubt it, Sacia. You will marry someone you really love and nothing will matter except that you and he will be happy ever after.”

  Sacia clasped her hands together.

  “Oh, I do so hope that comes true! It’s what I pray for every night, as I told you, not only to God, but also to Aphrodite.”

  “Then I hope she listens to us both.”

  “I want you to tell me – ” Sacia began.

  The Prince knew she wanted to talk about Greek Goddesses, but at that moment they reached what he was sure was the inn they had been informed about.

  It was not very prepossessing, but it obviously was large enough to take in a few tourists and the Prince only hoped that there would be empty rooms for them.

  When they went inside, the publican was somewhat impressed by their appearances and he said that he had two rooms available but only for one night and he could stable their horses.

  The rooms had been booked for people who were arriving the next day by ship.

  “Is this ship for tourists?” the Prince asked him.

  “I don’t know, sir. It were two people who were here last week and went to Lucca and asked if they could come back tomorrow.”

  The Prince considered that this told him nothing, but he had to accept the rooms.

  He decided that he must find out more accurately if any ships were likely to come into the fishing village, and he knew the ships that came from France carrying tourists usually sailed directly to Rome or Naples.

  If there was not one due soon, they would have to find another way of reaching Rome.

  However for tonight at least there would be a roof over their heads.

  They were shown the rooms, which were small and exceedingly badly furnished, but as before not dirty.

  The Prince had travelled enough to know that some inns calling themselves hotels could be most unpleasant.

  “I am afraid we are not going to be particularly comfortable,” he said to Sacia as they looked at the rooms. “But we cannot expect the comfort we enjoyed with the Duca to be available every day like manna from Heaven!”

  “I am quite happy as long as I am with you, Nico, and one thing I can be quite sure of is that no one Papa sends in search of me is likely to look in a place like this.”

  “I might say the same for myself!”

  “Then we should be grateful that we are both safe and don’t have to worry about someone pouncing on us out of the dark.”

  The Prince thought that could easily have happened to her at the Duca’s Castle and yet he had no intention of telling her, so he merely replied,

  “We will hope to find something decent to eat and then we will go to bed.”

  Sacia nodded as he continued,

  “I will try and find out about the ship that may be stopping here tomorrow, but these people appear to know very little about it.”

  Only after he had sent Sacia up to bed did he ask the publican to make enquiries about the ship and he had thought of going down to the harbour himself.

  But he did not like to leave Sacia alone even though there were very few people in the inn, only occasional men coming in for a cheap drink.

  What the Prince did eventually find out was that the ship would put into the harbour at about noon.

  It was coming from Genoa and he was assured that the ship’s destination was Rome and that was where he had to escort Sacia.

  When he went up to bed, the Prince found the straw mattress was extremely hard and although he opened the window wide the room still smelt musty.

  It was in every way the sort of place that he most disliked and yet once again before he fell asleep he could not help thinking how fascinating it all was.

  Sacia had not complained to him nor said anything derogatory about any of their lodgings.

  He recalled various times in the past when a pretty woman had been angry with him for not providing her with some small but unnecessary comfort and had made it clear he had not been caring for her as he should have been.

  ‘Sacia is surely a very good travelling companion,’ the Prince mused as he turned over.

  The bed felt just as hard as it had on his other side and the pillow too was very lumpy and then he told himself that as a soldier and Ruler he should not be upset by trivial unimportant discomforts.

  He should just fix his mind on achieving what he had set out to do and then he recalled that he could not be sure of what that was until he returned home.

  He wondered if they were in a panic because they could not find him and hoped that Ruta was making the most of his disappearance.

  Then as he fell asleep he was thinking again how beautiful Sacia was and how glad he was that he had been quick-witted enough to save her from the Duca.

  *

  The following morning there was no hurry as the ship was not due until noon.

  They enjoyed a late breakfast that was rather better than their supper had been – the fish had come in fresh and the bread had been baked that morning by the publican’s wife.

  The Prince paid the reasonable amount they were asked for their rooms and for stabling their horses.

  He realised that he would have to dispose of the horses and that the publican was the only local who might buy them, probably with the intention of selling them later at a good profit.

  After some hard bargaining, he agreed a price with the publican far below their true worth and he bid a solemn farewell to his favourite stallion.

  Then they walked down to the harbour, the Prince carrying his saddlebag.

  There were several fishermen around, two of whom they had seen the previous day.

  They talked to the Prince and assured him that there was no question of this ship passing by the village as the larger vessels did.

  The Prince however was still rather anxious and then Sacia exclaimed,

  “There’s a ship on the horizon and it looks as if it’s coming towards us!”

  He gave a sigh of relief.

  When the ship came into the harbour, four people appeared who wished to board it and the Prince and Sacia managed to push ahead of them.

  There was an Officer who was quite obviously the Purser, although that was a rather grand name for him, who was in charge of the cabins.

  Seeing there was a large number of people aboard the ship already, the Prince took the first cabins offered and thankfully there were two of them and they were side by side.

  He realised how lucky he had been when the people behind him were told there were only two other cabins left and that they would have to share them.

  They were grumbling as Sacia and the Prince went below.

  The cabins were small and as bare as a cabin could possibly be. There were no curtains at the window and just blankets on the beds with no sheets.

  The Prince then inspected both cabins and ne
ither of them looked better than the other and so he told Sacia that they would just have to put up with what he expected would be considerable discomfort before reaching Rome.

  “How long are we at sea?” Sacia enquired.

  “I should think it will take us two days,” he replied.

  “But it is all part of our adventure and we are lucky to be given these two cabins. We will just have to pretend they are more luxurious than they really are.”

  The Prince laughed.

  “You are the sort of travelling companion everyone hopes to find, but is usually disappointed.”

  “Am I, why?” Sacia asked.

  “Because you never complain and accept things as they are,” the Prince answered.

  “I think the truth is that I am so grateful to you for taking me away with you that I would suffer inexpressible hardship rather than have to go back.”

  “Then that is all that matters. We can only hope that, if nothing else, they will provide decent meals on this boat.”

  The Prince’s wish was not granted.

  The food they were given for dinner was, the Prince considered, completely inedible.

  The only consolation was that he was able to buy quite a reasonable bottle of wine – it was apparently far too expensive for the other passengers.

  It was the following morning when they stopped at another port that matters became really uncomfortable.

  A large number of noisy youths came on board and they had apparently been to some games and having been victors they were celebrating their success.

  They started drinking as soon as the ship moved out of harbour and the bar was open. In a few hours they were, the Prince discovered, almost paralytic with the amount of alcohol they had consumed.

  Sacia had wanted to stay on deck to watch the land they were passing on their left, but after they had been on deck for a short time the Prince insisted they went below.

  It was not so much because the men were drunk, as that he disliked the way they eyed Sacia.

  She had always been well protected from ordinary people and very certainly from the sort of men they were mingling with now.

  She therefore had no idea that the way they were looking at her was an insult.

  “I am sorry,” the Prince said when they entered her cabin, “but you are not to come out of here until we reach Rome.”

  “Why not? Why are you making such a fuss about those men on deck? They are rather noisy and I think they must have drunk a lot, but they are not fighting or making themselves unpleasant.”

  The Prince reckoned it was only a question of time before they made themselves particularly unpleasant.

  “You are to stay here,” he repeated. “I think by tonight these youths will be incredibly noisy and you will have no wish to be anywhere near them.”

  “No, of course not,” Sacia agreed.

  “Then, Sacia, you must do as I tell you and that incidentally is an order!”

  She laughed.

  “It is nothing new for me to be ordered about, but it is something you have not done until now, Nico.”

  “I will only do so as long as we are travelling on this ship. You are to stay in this cabin with it locked and barred.”

  “So I am a prisoner! But I don’t really mind, as long as I am your prisoner, Nico.”

  She smiled up at him as she spoke.

  The Prince thought she had no idea of how lovely she looked and how much he wanted to kiss her.

  Then he told himself it would be a terrible mistake to frighten her or to make her regard him in any different way.

  He was sure she meant it when she said she thought he was an archangel who had been sent down from Heaven to rescue her.

  She had not seriously thought of him as a man.

  He felt certain that she had not seriously considered any man in the past, except of course for the man she was being forced to marry.

  ‘She is completely innocent and unspoilt,’ he told himself, ‘and that is how she must remain until I leave her.’

  He walked to the porthole and looked out.

  “It is a fine night and the sea is calm,” he said, “so at least those noisy buffoons on deck will not be seasick.”

  “I want to be outside watching the sun sink in the West and of course I want to see Corsica. I have only seen it on a map with the King of Sardinia beneath it.”

  “I don’t think that they are particularly exciting islands. Not like the islands of Greece.”

  “Of course not, Nico. Now you are talking about the islands I really want to visit. It would be so exciting if we could go to Delos and Kos – and then on to Delphi.”

  The Prince smiled.

  “I understand exactly why you should want to visit Delphi. Like all women you are dreaming of Apollo and hoping you will meet him in real life.”

  “How did you guess that? Of course you are right. I have always thought that Apollo was the most thrilling and romantic of all the Greek Gods.”

  “He was young and handsome, and that, I suppose, is the man every woman hopes to give her heart to,” the Prince countered almost sarcastically.

  Sacia was silent for a moment and then she parried,

  “Apollo conquered the world by the power of his beauty. He had no earthly resources. No Army or Navy and no powerful Government. There was just himself and ever since no one has asked for more.”

  The Prince believed this to be true.

  It was exactly what he was seeking himself and he did not wish to be loved because he was the Ruler of a Kingdom – he wished to be loved as a man.

  That was what he had set out to find when he ran away. Then because he was suddenly afraid of his own thoughts, he turned from the window.

  “I am going up to see what they are doing,” he said. “In the meantime you are to stay here and talk to no one.”

  “There will be no one to talk to if you leave me,” Sacia answered.

  He pretended not to hear her and walked from the cabin closing the door quietly.

  As he climbed up the companionway he could hear the youths shouting at each other. They were laughing in a way that told him that they were now extremely drunk.

  The Prince stayed on deck for a short time and the men, who by now had made it impossible to speak or hear anything but their shouting and laughter, left him alone.

  He realised there were very few women on board and those who were, were not young, and no one took any notice of them.

  He was however quite certain that if Sacia appeared they would be delighted with her and would undoubtedly frighten her by clustering round her and trying to attract her attention.

  He went to see the Purser to ask him if it would be possible for them to have dinner in their own cabins.

  “I can understand why you are asking for it, sir,” he answered the Prince.

  “Do you always have this sort of riotous collection on the ship?” the Prince asked.

  “Only once a month when we pick them up at the port we’ve just left,” the Purser replied. “At other times we’re fortunate if the ship’s half full.”

  “And you make the journey every week?”

  “Every two weeks, sir, and it only pays when we’re full like we are today.”

  “I am just wondering,” the Prince asked him, “if it would be wise for my sister, who is young and very pretty, to come out of her cabin before we actually go ashore.”

  “If you take my advice, sir, you leave her where she is. This lot don’t mean any harm, but they drink too much and on one voyage, because of their goings-on, a woman fell into the sea and we had a job to save her.”

  “I am glad to hear she did not drown.”

  “She wasn’t far off it,” the Purser answered, “and I doubt if she’ll go to sea again in a hurry.”

  “Well, that is certainly something we must avoid. So, although you are busy, will you please instruct your Stewards to bring dinner for my sister and myself to her cabin? I am prepared to pay extra for their t
rouble.”

  At the mention of extra money the Purser was only too pleased to arrange for their dinner to be carried to Sacia’s cabin.

  When the Prince put quite a number of coins in his hand, he was overcome and promised he would arrange everything for seven-thirty.

  The Prince, pleased at what he had achieved, went back to Sacia.

  She was sitting at the porthole and jumped up when he opened the door.

  “I have been hoping you would not be long, Nico. The noise is deafening and I am sure those young men are very rough. They might knock you overboard by mistake.”

  “I quite agree with you, Sacia, and that is why I have arranged for dinner here in your cabin.”

  “Oh, that will be fun and I only hope they have a better menu than last night.”

  “I have done my best. But short of seeking out the cook, who I am sure will be too busy to see me, I have left it in the hands of the Purser.”

  “Are we going straight to Rome?” Sacia asked him.

  “I think we stop at one place on the way and then we leave this ship at the Port of Ostia and hire a carriage to take us to the City.”

  “Oh, I was wondering about that, Nico.”

  “Now you can stop worrying and enjoy yourself.”

  “I am enjoying myself so much because I am with you and because it is all so thrilling,” Sacia sighed. “But I would be scared if I was alone on a ship like this.”

  Even as she spoke there was a loud burst of raucous laughter overhead and then yells and cries.

  “I wonder what they are doing,” Sacia asked.

  “Leave them alone. We must try to ignore them, although I doubt if it will be easy to sleep if they are as noisy as this all night.”

  “Surely they will go to their cabins?”

  “You heard what they told us when we came on board. We have the last cabins. This lot will either sleep on deck if it is not too cold or in the corridors.”

  Sacia looked rather apprehensive.

  “It’s all right, Sacia, I am here beside you. But as I have already said you must stay in your own cabin.”

  They were served dinner which the Prince thought was only just edible. There was, however, a bottle of wine that he considered just passable, although Sacia drank only one small glass.