A Stolen Tongue (28 page)

“Would it be so bad to stay here an extra week?” I ask with a smile. “We are planning a short trip to the River Jordan. You could come with us.”

“Actually, I've been extended an invitation by a lady friend,” he whispers conspiratorially. My stomach turns over. “You know women don't like to be kept waiting.”

I laugh like a man who has not sworn a vow of chastity and grope for one final lie.

“Ser Niccolo ...” I hesitate, petting the donkey's flat white head. There must be something, something he desires badly enough to turn aside from Sinai.

“Is something troubling you, Friar? Surely you can't crave my company that badly?”

My voice comes to me from far away. “It's just that I've been disingenuous with you, and now I'm embarrassed.”

He pats the donkey's rump and straightens, tugging his tunic into place. “Yes?”

I can't look at him, but absently comb the burrs from his donkey's
mane with my fingers. She whinnies and bumps my hand with her nose.

“The night of the fire,” I say slowly, “my friend John and I found something on your sister. Something that wasn't consumed.”

“Yes?”

“It did not belong to a cow, nor do I think to a mere mortal. Your sister, Ser Niccolo, was in possession of Saint Katherine's tongue, stolen from Cyprus.”

For the first time he looks upon me with something besides outright suspicion.

“When Contarini's ship reached Cyprus”—he measures his words—“I learned Katherine's tongue had been taken from a church in Nicosia. I was afraid it might be her.”

“We kept it safe until we could decide what to do with it. John wants to take it to Sinai and hand it over to the monks there, but I fear my patron will not let us go. I believe it should be returned to Nicosia, where it belongs.”

“I would be happy to return it for you, Friar,” Ser Niccolo offers, swinging onto his donkey. “I feel responsible for its theft in the first place.”

I breathe a loud sigh of relief. “How I hoped you would say that, Ser Niccolo! I know you will reach Cyprus before we will. I am so anxious to give it back.”

“Certainly. Do you have it?”

“John has it,” I say, a bit too quickly.

“Shall we go find him?”

“He's gone off to Mount Olivet,” I say. “And I'm on my way to Aceldama. We are supposed to meet in the Sepulchre courtyard at dusk. Could you join us there?”

“At dusk?” I can see his desire war with his common sense. The caravan leaves at midnight, but if he wants her tongue, what choice does he have?

“If it will make you late, we can always return it ourselves,” I suggest.

“I don't see why I couldn't stop by on my way out of town,” Ser Niccolo says at last. “Wait for me in the courtyard. I'll be there at dusk.”

I am sealing our appointment with a handshake when the tipsy Mameluke Peter Ber swings around the corner. He is lifting a bottle of small beer to his lips when he spots the translator and flings the bottle aside, smashing it against a Jewish door.

“Peter!” I cry nervously. “Did you catch those bad children?”

He has not been a crafty Saracen for nothing, brothers. Immediately he assumes I have told a lie.

“Yes, I did,” he shouts. “And stomped their necks.”

Ser Niccolo spits in disgust and spurs on his ass, leaving me coughing up fine red dust. He slaps the Mameluke painfully on the neck as he canters past.

“Let's go, Abdullah,” he shouts over the ass's hooves. “We have much still to do.”

The Mameluke trots resentfully after the translator, and I watch them disappear into the bowels of the Jewish quarter. I have much still to do before tonight as well, but first I must see what Niccolo purchased in this shop. I slip in through the back and startle the shopkeeper, who bears more than a striking resemblance to Yellow Turban, who brought me here. His turban is blue, however, and I realize to my surprise he must be a Converso.

“That man who just left.” I speak slow childlike Latin, hoping to make myself understood. “What did he buy?”

The shopkeeper nods his comprehension and takes me by the hand to the back of his counter. There in miniature jars and boxes he stores parts of the face: cloudy eyeballs rolling in vinegar, noses wrapped in cotton, teeth that have been stained with tea to falsely age them. Three tongues are lined up, nestled in brightly painted tortoise shells. In a tidy Latin hand, they are labeled
Saint Lucy, Father Abraham, Queen Zenobia of Palmyra
. He is about to walk past them.

“Wait.” I reach out and stop him. “These tongues. I know they are not real.”

He feigns insult in his Hebrew language, ordering me out of his store until he sees I prefer the tongues to be false. Then he smiles.

“Are they Christian? Saracen?” I ask. I need to know what poor soul had her grave disturbed and her tongue pulled out by the root.

The shopkeep chortles to himself. “
Mamluk
.” He snorts. “Who cares?”

I think about the open pits outside the city walls we saw on our approach to Jerusalem, the common burial apostate slaves are given in communal, rat-infested graves.

“I'll take this one then,” I say, pointing to Queen Zenobia.

He wraps up the tongue in its tortoise shell and works out my total on a scrap of paper. Was Ser Niccolo honestly fooled by these laughably false relics? Does he so desire to collect Saint Katherine that he is willing to insert a corruption into her otherwise pure body?

“What did that man before me buy?” I ask again, distracting the merchant from his addition. Spread out before him on the counter are sheafs of paper stamped with what appear to be authentic papal seals. He sorts through purchasable Indulgences, Bulls, Dispensations for Marrying Nieces and Nephews, until he finds the paper Niccolo put his signature to. He turns it around to face me as he hands me my tongue.

Ser Niccolo, I read, purchased a hundred masses for his dead sister's soul.

I find the story of the Donestre in Arsinoë's hollowed little book,
The Wonders of the East
. The glue that held the pages together has loosened, and, toward the back, a few single leaves are free and readable. Before the light deserted me, I read of the Iron Gate errected by Alexander the Great at the edge of the Immense Desert, where the foothills of Paradise begin. He penned in the flesh-eating Dog Heads, the Sciapodes that hop on one foot, the unnatural Blemmies who wear their eyes in their chests, and all the other monsters who haunt the edges of maps. The Donestre, Ser Niccolo's monsters, live on an island in the center of the Red Sea, where no barricade can contain them. They are the worst sort of monster, brothers, because even as they devour you they tell you what you want to hear.

It is too dark now, though, to read. The street traffic around the Sepulchre is thinning, Saracens head home to eat dinner on their roofs and watch the sun set. They walk so slowly, these Eastern men—time is no more than a shallow pleasant footbath to them. I see, through the slotted window in the thick-walled tower beside me, an old Saracen priest start up the steps. When the sun disappears and he announces the call to prayer, the Sepulchre guards will lock us in. Or out. I glance behind me. Only five pilgrims left in line.

Truly, the East is full of Wonders, brothers. That an honest monk could leave home and become a liar, picklock, and handler of false relics seems wondrous enough to me. That he might, in a single day, have laid up such a huge store of new sins after being granted complete
remission almost surpasses belief. Deceiver that he is, will he even be allowed to enter the Holiest Sepulchre, or will the hand of God strike him a blow across his mouth and stop him on the threshold? I suppose only time will tell.

The Saracen priest's white beard bobs up the staircase, in no more of a hurry than the men drifting home to dinner. Two pilgrims left in line. The priest climbs onto the wooden platform just below the minaret's roof and floats to the very edge.

“Allaaah ...”

“Felix, there you are.”

I close my eyes. He has really come.

Ser Niccolo strides across the courtyard, leaving his loaded white donkey tethered to a sheepish Peter Ber. The Mameluke looks uncomfortable out in public in his Christian clothes.

“Peter,” I call, “watch Ser Niccolo's things for a moment. We'll be right back.” I grab the translator's hand. “John's inside,” I explain. “I told him we'd come find him the minute you arrived.” As we sprint to the doors, the Saracens rise to shut it. I thrust my last ten ducats into a shriveled fist and push Niccolo in ahead of me.

“What's the rush?” he asks.

“I just don't want to make you late. You are doing us such an enormous favor.”

The pilgrims stray into the processional, but John is not among them.

“I told him not to wander off,” I lie. “This is very rude.”

“It's fine.” Ser Niccolo smiles. “I'm sure it won't take long.”

For several minutes, I honestly can't find him. At last there he is, praying under a hanging lamp in the Lady Chapel, just beyond the Edicule.

“John.” I bend over and tap his shoulder. “Do you have the tongue?”

The Archdeacon looks up, startled by my question. When he sees who I brought, I expect him to slap me across the face.

“Don't say anything,” I whisper. “I'll explain later.”

I feign a transaction with my friend and produce the hollow book from my pocket. John grips my robe, but I shake him off.

“
The Wonders of the East.
” The translator turns it over and smiles. “She stole this too. It's from my library.”

He carefully unlatches the book on Queen Zenobia's tongue. Behind me, John catches his breath.

“‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue,'” the translator quotes.

“Proverbs Eighteen,” John says tersely. I quickly cut him off.

“We mustn't detain Ser Niccolo any longer,” I say. “He has been kind enough to come so far out of his way.”

“I'll see this reaches Cyprus safely.” Niccolo drops the little book into his pocket. “Now I must go, or I will miss my ride.”

“Certainly, certainly.” I keep pace as he starts toward the doors. Precessing toward us, the pilgrims cup their tapers against the drafts. One staggers under the weight of his self-sized candle like Christ beneath the cross.

“So good-bye, my friend; perhaps we'll meet again.” Niccolo stretches out his hand.

I say good-bye in the vestibule, happy to get away before he tries the door.

While I wait for Ser Niccolo to discover he is locked in for the night, brothers, I want to interject a brief word here about resurrection, so that you might pardon the sin I committed this afternoon at the relic shop of the Jewish quarter.

In their benighted faith, the Saracens believe that at the End Times an angel called Adriel will slay all creatures, including the angels, and, having performed his macabre task, will turn his sword upon himself. When all are dead, Allah, as they call God, will raise up every creature, saving only Death. This they hold as a tenet of their faith, and this they believe to be true.

As you know, brothers, in reality the End Times are quite different. When the Day of Judgment comes, all the peoples of the earth will gather together in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, there to be tried for their sins. I know many simple countryfolk worry of nothing more than “How will I have a place to sit in the valley, if we are to share it with all other nations?” This is not a fear so foolish as it might seem, for the Valley of Jehoshaphat is barely large enough to
contain all the Swabians who currently
are,
not to mention all that were or will ever be. Several countryfolk gave me money to set up a small pile of rocks in the valley and thus mark their place for the Last Judgment, which I shall do to humor them. All learned Christians understand that in the last days the world will be rent and the valley elongated, past the Mount of Olives, past the River Jordan, so there will be room for all to stand and hear the word of God.

In any event, wherever we are buried, on the Last Day we will stand bodily before our Lord. For this reason, grave-robbing, be it for scientific or artistic purposes, is anathema to most Christians. How if after death someone takes one of our legs? Shall we approach the throne a cripple? How if someone takes our eyes? Shall we approach blind? How if, even as we are growing cold, a surgeon or undertaker's assistant takes our maidenhead? Shall we cry out to God for the return of our virginity?

So, you see, in both Saracen and Christian faiths, a person must preserve his body for the Day of Judgment. Had I stumbled upon a tongue of either faith, I could never have purchased it. I take it as a miracle that my bride steered us to one of Abdullah's wretched race, neither Christian nor Saracen, reviled by both, a tongue that has no voice before our Lord in the first place.

“Open up! What's wrong with this door?” It took even less time than I imagined for the pounding to begin.

“Why is this locked?”

“Ser Niccolo?” I take a deep breath and run back to him. “What's wrong?”

“This door is
locked,
that's what's wrong. How am I supposed to get out?”

“What? Why would it be locked?”

“Let me out!”
He shouts into the wood.
“Somebody!”

“There must be some mistake,” I reassure him. “Let's find the key.”

Of course, Father Guardian is unavailable, leading the procession. Any number of Heretical Christians mill about, relaxing at their own shrines, cooking their dinners behind heavy red altar curtains. The translator explains the situation to one scrawny Copt, who slowly
shakes his head. There is no way. These guards won't even accept bribes, he tells us, can you imagine? We quickly circle the whole church, searching for an alternate exit—a forgotten door, a low window. As I know from last night, the Saracens have walled up every opening so that no one may enter without paying the proper fee. The only way out is sealed until dawn.