The air outside seemed even colder than it had last night. Fog hung over the gray slate roofs—for a moment he didn’t know in which direction the sea lay, and he was surprised to find himself a little frightened by the uncertainty.
Get used to it, he told himself. Soon enough you’ll be crossing the Apennines, and dozens of miles distant from the sea in any direction.
He walked downhill through the narrow streets, shivering whenever a drop of cold dew would fall from one of the iron balconies overhead and strike his bald scalp, and in a few minutes he had left the buildings behind and reached the drab beach; Portovenere was invisible beyond the fog, and the Bolivar was a dim, vertical brush-stroke of slightly darker gray far out on the leadenly shifting sea.
He began walking south along the dark, surf-firmed sand, still trying to suppress his limp, and he tried to assess his capabilities, mental and physical.
He had lost the inhuman pallor the nefando den had given him, and he really thought he was stronger now than he had been in many years; still, he felt fragile, and he hoped no great exertions would be required of him. His left hand wouldn’t be much good for holding a knife or a pistol, with its maimed little finger and absent ring finger, but his right hand was still good. And, since trimming his white beard and remaining hair, he no longer drew wondering stares from strangers.
And he was fairly confident that he would be able to maintain his resolve, for he’d been firmly decided for six weeks now—without any of the passion and drama that accompanied Byron’s decisions—that he would do everything he could to free Josephine and his child from the nephelim infection, even if the effort should involve his own death.
The fog was beginning to glow—perceptibly brighter to his left, where the unseen sun was rising over the eastern mountains. He turned and began walking back toward the inn.
The fog had burned off and the sky was a hot, empty blue by the time Byron arose at noon, and Crawford had to find his hat in order to be able to accompany the lord and Trelawny down the hill again to the shore. The sand was hot underfoot.
Byron was sweating and trembling, but after walking up to the surf and letting it swirl around his ankles he suddenly insisted that he would swim out to the Bolivar and have lunch alongside, treading water.
Trelawny was unable to talk him out of it, and so once again the two of them stripped and waded into the surf, Byron looking desperate and Trelawny impatient, leaving Crawford to watch their clothing.
Crawford sat down in the hot sand and watched the two heads recede beyond the low waves.
He soon lost sight of them against the distant wedge that was the dark hull of the Bolivar, but after a while, squinting against the glitter of the sun on the water, he could see bundles being lowered from the ship’s deck, and he knew the swimmers had arrived and were about to start their lunch.
Crawford got to his feet and plodded up the sand toward where the early-morning fishing boats rested upside down against the crumbled edge of the street pavement, faintly shaded by their spread, drying nets. Up on the pavement he turned and looked back at the Bolivar. He still couldn’t make out the heads of Byron and Trelawny.
The thought of food wasn’t at all attractive, but he knew he should eat something. An old woman was selling tiny fried squids out of a wheeled cart nearby, and he walked over, allowing himself to limp, and bought a plateful. They were redolent with garlic and green olive oil, and at the first bite his hunger awoke; he ate the squids as fast as he could cram them into his mouth, and then bought another plate and ate them at a more leisurely pace, standing by the old woman’s cart and glancing occasionally at the piles of clothing and out at the Bolivar.
At last he could see white arms flashing in the sea between the shore and the ship, and he handed the empty plate back to the woman, hopped down off the pavement into the soft, hot sand, and began limping back toward where the swimmers’ clothes lay on the shore.
And he began to run down toward the surf, though there was nothing he could do, when he saw the figure that was Trelawny begin swimming rapidly toward the other.
The two heads were stopped out there; almost certainly Trelawny was arguing that Byron should let him help him, and Byron was—no doubt angrily—refusing.
“Let him help you, damn it,” Crawford whispered, knuckling sweat from his eyes.
Trelawny didn’t get any closer to Byron, but after a few moments Crawford could see that the two men were swimming back to the Bolivar.
Fine, he thought. Now come ashore in the ship’s boat. This is no time to be airing your damned pride, Byron.
He didn’t see any figures climbing the ladder, and no boat was being lowered; and, a few minutes later, he once again saw the swimmers working their way shoreward through the low waves.
“You idiots,” Crawford said softly.
It took five minutes for Trelawny and Byron to swim in to the point where they could stand, and Crawford met them there, the surf swirling around his waist.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Crawford demanded furiously.
“What right have you got to risk your life—unnecessarily!—when so many people are depending on you?”
Byron had waded in a few yards farther and was leaning forward, his hands on his knees under water, apparently devoting all his attention to filling and emptying his lungs.
Trelawny had backed away a couple of steps, so that the incoming swells twitched at the spiky ends of his black beard. “You might go get our clothes,” he told Crawford.
Crawford hesitated a moment, then nodded and turned and began wading back to the beach. Luckily no one had stolen the clothes.
Trelawny and Byron dressed in the water. Trelawny started forward toward the wavering surf line, then paused and looked back when he realized Byron and Crawford weren’t following.
“You go ahead, Tre,” panted Byron. “We’ll meet you at the inn. Have a bottle of something cold waiting for us, there’s a good lad.”
Trelawny’s bushy eyebrows went up. “Aren’t you at least going to get out of the water?”
“Soon enough,” Byron told him.
Trelawny shrugged and splashed ashore.
Byron turned to Crawford. “I’m doing this—” he began. Then, “God, you reek,” he said. “What have you been eating?”
“Squids. You should eat something, too—we might need our strength tonight.” He smacked his lips. “And the garlic can’t hurt.”
“I already eat God’s own amount of the damned stuff. Garlic, not squid.” A knee-high wave slapped at them, and Byron stumbled but caught himself. “It’s not without defense value, but …” He was squinting in the bright sunlight, and his shoulders were already red.
After a pause while another, smaller wave foamed around their knees, Crawford said, “But …?”
Byron visibly regained his train of thought. “Damn you, Aickman, do you suppose I like wringing my body out on these swims? Do you imagine I’d do it if eating some … goddamned garlicky squids would insulate me sufficiently to let me save your strayed wife? Do you … do you imagine that I’m showing off?”
Crawford could feel his face heating up. “Actually,” he said, “I suppose I did. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve got nothing to prove when it comes to swimming. I swam the damned Hellespont, from Sestos to Abydos.”
Ten or twelve years ago, thought Crawford. But aloud he said, “I know.”