Of Daggers and Deception

  Cover images: Man in Fur with Scar on Face © Rekha Garton / Trevillion Images; The Viking Sea Raiders © Christopher Wood Gallery, London, UK / Bridgeman Images. Interior Image: Hand Drawn Seamless Pattern © lasagnaforone / Shutterstock. Cover design by Natalie Brown.

  Map copyright © 2021 by Briana Shawcroft

  Cover design copyright © 2021 by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.

  American Fork, Utah

  Copyright © 2021 by A. L. Sowards

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect

  the position of Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: December 2021

  ISBN: 978-1-52442-057-4

  Praise for A. L. Sowards

  “Of Daggers and Deception by A. L. Sowards is a tale of survival, deception, battles, scheming, love, faith, sacrifice, and betrayal. It had a very realistic plot and beautiful character development. Rasheed was the perfect main protagonist, and I loved his many facets. He was strong yet vulnerable . . . imperfect and relatable . . . . Sowards wrote a gripping historical novel, infusing it with much-needed humor. . . . Of Daggers and Deception would do well on the big screen.”

  —Readers’ Favorite five-star review

  “This journey to forever is a wild ride that satisfies nicely as that last page turns!”

  —InD’Tale Magazine

  “A.L. Sowards weaves a historically rich novel with fantastic pacing and not a detail overlooked. Her ability to bring history to life and to create characters that feel so real they may truly have existed is singular. Fans of historical fiction will devour this unique and captivating story—it is not to be missed!”

  —Karen Thornell, author of To Marry an Earl

  Praise for Of Sword and Shadow

  “The first-person narrator deftly provides enough of the complex context to keep the reader informed without weighing down the narrative. A lively story set in a fascinating place and time, with appealing main characters.”

  —Historical Novel Society

  “A. L. Sowards is incredibly skilled at taking vast amounts of historical research and using it to weave settings for gripping stories. This book was a fun and exciting read with plenty of nail-biting suspense. Loved the main character. She was gutsy and brave and kind and smart and had a beautiful character arc that includes a budding faith. (An extra nod to author A. L. Sowards for letting characters actually hurt after they get injured instead of having them hop right back up like it’s nothing). The setting in 14th century Thebes is unique and interesting and there’s a swoony-sweet romance.”

  —Stephanie Black, Whitney-award winning author

  “While the plot, woven around the military-style takeover of Thebes in 1379 is interesting from the historical point of view and obviously thoroughly researched by Sowards, the cast of characters gives this story its power. What a gifted writer A. L. Sowards is. Sowards keeps us enthralled, not just with the way fate has brought them together and torn them apart, but with her depiction of the customs, morals, and religious beliefs of the times. Quite frankly, I was saddened by how little life for women back then is unchanged today. Of Sword and Shadow is brilliantly written. Sowards presents authentic settings, captivating characters, excellent dialogue, and a high-action plot. Add this one to your reading list today.”

  —Readers’ Favorite five-star review

  For Jeremy

  A Note about Content

  This novel contains depictions that some readers may find disturbing, such as a desecrated corpse, naval battles, and sword fights and their associated wounds.

  Glossary and Historical Background

  Al-Andalus: Areas of the Iberian Peninsula ruled by Muslims.

  Almohad: A Berber group from Northern Africa whose Muslim empire included parts of present-day Spain.

  Amphora: A container with handles and a narrow neck, usually made of ceramic in this novel’s setting, generally used for liquids (plural amphorae).

  Apodyterium: Dressing room of a bathhouse.

  Basque: A person from the Basque homelands in present-day Spain and France. At the time of this story, the land was in the Kingdom of Navarre. The Basques have lived there since before the beginning of recorded history and have a distinct culture and language.

  Bourrelet: A hat made of fabric rolled and arranged around a lightweight hoop.

  Brigandine: Flexible piece of armor for the torso, made of thick cloth and small pieces of metal sewn or riveted into position.

  Cadmea: The fortified, walled portion of the city of Thebes. Named for Cadmus, the city’s founder and first king.

  Caldarium: The hot room of a bathhouse.

  Castilian: The people or language originating in Castile, which, at the time of this story, was the largest kingdom in what would become Spain. Castilian was the precursor language to the modern Spanish now spoken on the Iberian Peninsula.

  Catalan: The people or language originating in Catalonia (part of present-day Spain). Like Spanish and French, Catalan is a romance language. Most of the Catalans involved in this story are descendants of the Grand Catalan Company, whose members settled in Greece in the early part of the fourteenth century as mercenaries for and then rulers of the Duchy of Athens.

  Cuirass: A piece of armor worn to protect the torso, consisting of a chest piece and a back piece.

  Denier Tournois: Small coins used for everyday purchases, minted in French regions and in wide circulation in the Duchy of Athens.

  Duchy: A political entity governed by a duke.

  Duchy of Athens: A crusader state established after the Fourth Crusade attacked the Christians in Constantinople instead of the Muslims in the Holy Land. It included the areas of Boeotia and Attica, with a capital of Thebes. Originally ruled by Frankish nobles, then by the Grand Catalan Company, then by a series of Spanish and Italian mercenaries and adventurers.

  Euskara: The language of the Basques. Euskara is an orphan language, unrelated to any other known language in the world.

  Frigidarium: The cold room of a bathhouse.

  Grand Catalan Company: A group of mercenaries from Catalonia. After working for and then getting into trouble with the Byzantine Emperor, they were hired by Walter de Brienne to clear the Duchy of Athens of all de Brienne’s enemies. They took the Duchy from de Brienne when he tried to dismiss most of them without full pay. They ruled the Duchy for roughly seventy years, until Nerio Acioli and the Navarrese Company started taking their possessions.

  Halberd: A long pole weapon with a battle ax and a pike on the end.

  Hauberk: A shirt of mail armor, usually mid-thigh length with sleeves.

  Houppelande: A garment with a long body and flared sleeves, usually worn over other layers and fastened with a belt.

  Hosa: Fitted leg coverings.

  Janissary: An Ottoman soldier forcibly taken from his Christian family during childhood and raised to serve the sultan.

  Madonna: A polite term of address in medieval Italian cultures for a married woman.

  Maghreb: The Northwestern part of Africa that includes the lands traditionally inhabited by Berber peoples.

  Messer: A polite term of address in medieval Italian cultures for a man.

  Moor: In the context of this novel, a Moor is one of the Muslim inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula or Northwest Africa (or one of their descendants), usually of Berber or Arabic ethnicity.

  Navarrese Company: A company of mercenaries that included men from Navarre and Gascony. They fought first for Charles II of Navarre in his war against France, then for his brother, Louis of Evreux, in his attempt to take back Albania for his wife. The company took Durazzo, but Louis of Evreux died, leaving them unemployed. They broke into several companies, most of which made their way to Greece, working with the Knights Hospitaller or Nerio Acioli. After taking Thebes and other cities from the Catalan Company, they settled into the Duchy as a power in their own right.

  Pithos: A large storage container with a wide neck to allow easier access to its contents (plural pithoi).

  Pourpoint: A thick, quilted garment tailored for the torso, normally fastened in the front with buttons. Originally designed for wear beneath heavy armor.

  Signor: A polite term of address in medieval Italian cultures for men of rank.

  Signora: A polite term of address in medieval Italian cultures for a married woman of rank.

  Signorina: A polite term of address in medieval Italian cultures for an unmarried woman of rank.

  Surcoat: A long, loose outer garment worn over armor.

  Tepidarium: The warm room of a bathhouse.

  Tunica: Garment with a basic T-shaped cut worn by men and women in the medieval Greek world. Often worn under other layers. Women usually wore tunicas with hemlines at the ankles. Length for men was more varied.
/>
  Verguer: A high-ranking Catalan official in the Duchy of Athens with judicial, military, and financial duties.

  Chapter One

  Thebes, Greece, Spring 1390

  Odd things happened in bathhouses. I’d spent most of my childhood in the establishment my father ran in a little town along the old Roman road through Valencia, and eleven years had passed since I’d bought a bathhouse in Thebes. I’d seen my share of missing clothing, suspicious liaisons, and gaggles of naked men playing juvenile games that involved tossing scalding water at their opponents. Odd things were expected in bathhouses, but I never could have predicted how a series of them coming all within a day of each other would upend me, bringing together the past and the present in a way that would irrevocably alter my future.

  “Rasheed!” Eudocia called from somewhere in the middle of the bathhouse. Most people would have thought the voice calm, but I knew her well enough to recognize the unease that had crept in. She wasn’t the sort to call without reason, so I left one of my employees, Michali, to deal with the gathering line of patrons. I kept my hand on my sword hilt as I walked through the apodyterium, where patrons dressed and undressed, through the warm tepidarium, and into the steamy caldarium.

  We weren’t open yet, but a man had arrived early and somehow slipped inside. Now he was backed against the wall, only partially clothed, while Eudocia held a knife to his throat. Clean towels were scattered across the tile floor, overturned buckets still rolled slowly toward the corners of the room, and swirls of steam rose from the hot pool, spiraling into the air before they escaped through a small opening in the vaulted roof.

  The man turned his face toward me and seemed relieved, until I drew my longsword. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “This man seems to be confusing a bathhouse with a brothel and needs to be escorted from the premises.” Eudocia removed her blade from the man’s neck but kept it handy as she stepped away. “I don’t know how he got in so early. I doubt he paid or is due a refund.”

  The man rubbed his neck and glared at Eudocia, then at me. I raised my blade to discourage him from doing anything stupid. Anger made his hands fist and his skin turn a mottled purple. “It was an accident. I slipped and fell into you.” He spoke sloppy Italian—probably a Florentine who’d been up all night drinking.

  Eudocia’s jaw tightened. “What you did was no accident. You’re lucky I cleaned the floor this morning and don’t want to clean it again, or I would have called my husband and he’d have turned you into a bruised and bleeding mess.”

  The thumps and thwacks that sounded rhythmically from the courtyard told me exactly what her husband was doing: chopping wood to feed the bathhouse’s ovens. She would have called Gil instead of me, but his eyes had never fully recovered from an eleven-year-old injury, and the steam of the caldarium disoriented his sight more than most places.

  Contempt worked its way into the man’s expression as he glanced at me. “So you called him instead?”

  “Yes.” Eudocia’s lips quirked slightly. “A brother rather than a husband. Be grateful we’re in merciful moods this morning.”

  I grabbed the man’s arm and led him out the back exit, avoiding the patrons waiting at the main entrance. His anger and contempt were now touched with confusion, and I guessed why. Eudocia had indeed become like a sister to me in the years since we’d met. But the bather with wandering hands would notice only the different shades of our skin—hers olive, mine brown. Our hair was the same color, black, but hers fell in gentle waves, and mine sprung out in tight curls. We didn’t look like siblings, but we’d adopted each other as family since we had none of our own, other than Gil.

  “She’s not your sister. And I want my clothes back.”

  “I’ll throw them out to you. You’re not to come back to this bathhouse. Ever. Most of us who work here are armed.” Habits picked up as mercenaries hadn’t faded, and though Thebes had been calmer, for the most part, since the Navarrese had taken it from the Catalans and then sold it to the Florentines, unrest in the Duchy of Athens had never come to a complete end. “How did you get in?”

  His eyes fixed on the gate at the far side of the bathhouse’s large back courtyard. It wasn’t locked. We left it open this time of day so the hired attendants could enter. Normally, one of us would have seen anyone coming in from the alley, but if the man had slipped in while Gil and Michali were tending the ovens, the courtyard might have been empty.

  I threw the man into the alley none too gently. “Wait there for your clothes.”

  Rage at being left to wait in the alley, half naked, made his face turn purple again. I planned to take my time fetching his clothes and give the rage time enough to turn to humiliation.

  “What happened?” The chopping had stopped, and Gil stood behind me with the ax balanced on his shoulder. Gillen Marinelarena had been my closest friend since my family had disowned me and the caravan I’d sought refuge with had journeyed from Valencia into Navarre. I’d been a stranger in a foreign land until Gil had convinced his uncle to let me join their company of mercenaries.

  Gil had been there that dreadful night when my Uncle Tahir had found me. Word that I’d become Christian had filtered back home, and Tahir hadn’t been pleased. I’d already shamed my family by kissing a woman promised to another man, and that moment of passion had led to my exile. Apostatizing from Islam had been a step too far—one that warranted execution to restore the family’s honor. Gil hadn’t been able to stop Tahir from carving his knife across my face, but he’d saved my life that night and saved it again during our campaigns in Durazzo and Thebes. We’d fought against enemies, illness, and injury. When our mercenary days were behind us, we’d bought the bathhouse together.

  I gave the half-naked intruder a glare. “He snuck in and was pestering your wife.”

  “Is Eudocia all right?” Gil’s thick eyebrows pulled in concentration. He seemed torn between rushing into the bathhouse to comfort her and running out into the alley to take revenge on the man I’d deposited there.

  “Yes. I didn’t see what happened, but she had her knife out—no doubt before he’d done much.” Eudocia could handle just about anything, but if Gil went to check on her now, we’d be late to open. “Will you make sure he doesn’t come back inside?”

  “Is it wrong for me to hope he tries?” Gil adjusted his hold on the ax. His voice fell to a whisper. “I didn’t want her to come today. It’s still too soon.”

  I gripped his arm in sympathy because I didn’t have adequate words, not in any of the languages I’d picked up in my thirty-three years of life. I didn’t know any two people as in love as Gil and Eudocia, but that didn’t mean crushing grief couldn’t find them and swallow them whole. They’d get through their latest loss, I knew they would, but it would take some time.

  Eudocia was still in the caldarium, sorting towels into two piles: those to be washed again and those to be folded for use by patrons. I gathered the buckets and arranged them into two stacks.

  “Did he hurt you?” I asked. Her tunica looked as I’d expected it to, clean and tidy and cinched with a leather belt at the waist. A waist that wasn’t supposed to be so thin, not this spring.

  “No.” She moved to a bench and winced as she sat. Then she started folding the clean towels.

  “Maybe you should rest anyway. It’s only been a fortnight, and your body needs time to heal. Gil can take you home—we’ve enough wood to last the day.” She was perfectly capable of walking herself home, but in case the troublemaker lingered, it was best to send someone with her.

  “If I cannot give my husband a child, then I can at least help ensure his bathhouse prospers. I’ve already been gone too much lately—Gil too. It’s not fair to leave so much of the work to you.”

  I scooped up the dirty towels and put them in a large basket. “I’m only doing a little extra. We’ve a good staff. Michali could run the bathhouse all by himself if needed. And I’ve you to thank for finding him.” The one-time street urchin had proven the best of workers, and now he was almost a man, capable of any of the heavy tasks. “Besides, it’s only for a little while. Just until you’ve got your strength back.”