Three for the Road

The Second Chance

Chapter 1

Inside the tavern the unfriendly unshaven man sitting on a stool by the door looked at her truculently as if to challenge her very presence. After her query, without a word he signaled toward the back passage with a quick jerk of his head. The narrow dark passage close to the kitchen was filled with the indeterminate smells of the day. Rachel thought she recognized the scent of cabbage and sausage, but a sourness she couldn’t identify prevailed. Then, as she entered the open courtyard, light and the soft smell of horse droppings greeted her. She was too young, too well dressed for her mission, she knew. The hem of her skirt was muddy from walking in the streets. She had tried to lift it unbecomingly to her ankles to avoid soiling it but she had been only partly successful. The dirt had clung to the streets even after the morning rain had tried to cleanse them; the water had created pools of mud. Splashing from the wheels of the carts and carriages was difficult to avoid. The mud and muck on her skirt was a problem she would have to deal with later.

The sensation of helplessness and anxiety seized her again. She had the distinct feeling that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that her cause was already lost. But the undiminished thrust of urgency pushed her on.

Sunlight and the flash of light on metal, the clang of metal against metal and a man’s curses reached her. In the courtyard two men were facing each other, bare-breasted, saber or sword in hand, she did not know the difference. The invectives with which they regaled each other, she surmised by the intonation and the vigor of their exclamations. She understood one word, “merde”, although she had heard it only once before at a distance and it had had to be explained to her.

“You, bastard, you always seem to get the better of me. Not even you can be that good.” The speaker, the darker of the two men, turned away with a smirk. “You’d think that you’d let me win sometimes. After all, I’m the one who is paying you.”

The other man seemed to ignore the outburst. “That’s enough for today. You have improved but not much. You need more practice. Practice makes perfect, as they say. If I let you have your way you’d dismiss me forthwith.” He had a soft accent and he rolled his rs.

“Damn right! I don’t believe in wasting money or time, for that matter.”

The two men were fairly young, although neither could have been called a youth. They both were well muscled and shining from sweat. Rachel felt a twinge of revulsion, although she also felt an unfamiliar excitement. Half-naked men was something she was not accustomed to. She wished she wasn''t there and didn''t have to say what she had to say. The one who had spoken first was dark and curly haired. The other man, who was now collecting the weapons and drying his face with a rag, was the exact opposite: slender and light with straight blond hair. The darker man turned and saw her.

“Caray! “ lady!”

He took a few steps toward her. “I’m afraid this is no place for a lady.”

Rachel shrugged her shoulders and felt like replying that a lady she was not. She had already been branded otherwise, but she resisted the impulse.

“Are you Mr. De Murio?”

“At your service Miss...”

She ignored his question. “I have to speak to you.”

The man seemed taken aback. He turned away. “Ignaz!” he yelled.

One of the biggest Negroes she had ever seen appeared from nowhere. Rachel had no sympathy for slavery and felt that this was a bad omen. “ man who brought a slave into New York could not be much of a man, although Ignaz, if that was his name, was not only formidable but was well dressed, in clothing not appropriate for slave or servant.

“Please, could you see that the lady comes to no harm? Sit her down in the tavern and I will be with you as soon as I''m washed and dressed. It won''t take me long.”

Rachel thought De Murio must be entirely insensible to the civilized world to leave her in the care of a Negro she didn''t even know. She had never seen a black man so close. Despite his intimidating size, he seemed a proper and gentle man.