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responsible for them.’
    ‘There’s no point fighting,’ Isolde said very low to Luca. ‘It’s hopeless. Don’t try anything. I’ll give myself up.’
    Before he could protest, she called down to the man in the galley below: ‘Do you give your word that you will take us safely to my brother?’
    He nodded. ‘I am commanded not to harm you in any way.’
    She made up her mind. ‘Get our things,’ she said over her shoulder to Ishraq, who quickly went to the cabin and came out with their two saddlebags, tucking Freize’s knife out of sight, into the rope at her belt.
    ‘And what is to happen to me?’ Isolde demanded. She beckoned Ishraq to go with her as she went to the prow of the boat. The commander gestured to Luca and Freize that they should haul his boat alongside, so that the young women could climb down over the rail and into the waiting galley.
    ‘Your brother believes that you are trying to get to the Count of Wallachia for his help. He thinks you will try to get an army to come against him and claim your home. So he’s going to marry you to a French count who will take you away and keep you in his castle.’
    ‘And what about me?’ Ishraq asked, as Luca, Freize and Peter each took a grappling iron and, pulling on the ropes, walked the galley to the prow of the boat.
    ‘You, I have to sell to the Ottomans as a slave, in Venice,’ the man said. ‘I am sorry. Those are my orders.’
    Luca, whose father and mother had been captured by an Ottoman slaving galley when he was just a boy, went white and gripped the rail for support. ‘We can’t allow this,’ he said to Freize. ‘I can’t allow it. We can’t let this happen.’
    But Freize was watching Isolde, who had suddenly halted at the news that Ishraq would not be with her. ‘No. She comes with me,’ she said. ‘We are never separated.’
    The man shook his head. ‘My orders are clear. She is to be sold to the Ottomans.’
    ‘Be ready,’ Freize whispered to Luca. ‘I don’t think she’ll stand for that.’
    Isolde had reached the front of the ship. Stowed at her feet was an axe kept for emergencies – if a sail came down in a storm or if fishing nets had to be cut free. She did not even glance at it as she stepped up on the tightly knotted anchor rope, so that she could look down over the rail at the man who had come for her. ‘Sir, I have money,’ she pleaded. ‘Whatever my brother is paying you I will match, if you will just go back to him and say that you could not find us. Your men too can have a fee if you will just go away.’
    He spread his hands. ‘My Lady, I am your brother’s loyal servant. I have promised to take you back to him and sell her into slavery. Come down, or I will come and get you both, and your friends will suffer.’
    She bit her lip. ‘Please. Take me, and leave my friend. You can tell the lord my brother that you could not find her.’
    Wordlessly, he shook his head. ‘Come,’ he said bluntly. ‘Both of you. At once.’
    ‘I don’t want any fighting,’ she said desperately. ‘I don’t want anyone hurt for me.’
    ‘Then come now,’ he said simply. ‘For we will take you one way or another. I am ordered to take you dead or alive.’
    Freize saw her shoulders set with her resolve, but all she said was: ‘Very well. I’ll throw my things down first.’
    The commander nodded and put a hand on the grappling iron rope and drew his galley closer to their gently bobbing ship. Isolde leaned over the rail, holding the heavy saddlebag. ‘Come closer,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to lose my things.’
    He laughed at the acquisitive nature of all women – that Isolde should be such a fool as to be still thinking of dresses while being kidnapped! – and hauled the galley in even closer. The moment that it was directly under the prow of the ship Isolde dropped the saddlebag down to him. He caught it in his arms, and staggered back slightly at the weight of it, and at the same time she snatched up the