Come Twilight (42 page)

For the sake of your father, let me urge you to consider carefully what you are doing. Forty-two soldiers are a high price to pay for a single slave. Let this be enough. If you keep on, you will surely bring disgrace to your father—may Allah send him many good years and healthy sons—and to our family. You cannot be willing to sacrifice so much for so little, when we have a grand opportunity before us, to claim this land for the Prophet—may He be praised forever—and to complete our campaign against the Franks. It would be folly to persist in this venture when there is so much more to gain in other emprise.

Timus ibn Musa ibn Maliq

four days after the Summer Solstice

C
HIMENA

T
ext of a letter from the Comites Egnacius of Touloza to Manrigo, Dux of Asturica.

To my most dear, my most esteemed brother in faith, the high-reputed Manrigo, Dux of Asturica, the greetings of Comites Egnacius of Touloza, for so I style myself in the certain knowledge that my claim to the title will be upheld and I will finally come into the honors and dignity my father sought to bestow upon me at his death. Since you have the respect of me to address me thus, I will uphold my claims in these pages.

Were it not for this most pressing matter of securing my inheritance that keeps me here, I would bring men to help you in your fight against the perfidious Moors who have everywhere striven to claim these good Christian lands for their own, and have brought suffering and trouble to the world. I am unable to say what distress I feel at this necessary disappointment, but you must doubtless comprehend the reasons for my decision in this matter, for your position is secure, and you have no interloper of a half-brother attempting to claim what is yours. Had my mother lived, her testimony would have ended this whole absurdity at once, but as she has been called to Heaven—the result of poison, administered, no doubt, by my half-brother’s agents—she has no voicewith which to plead my case. I am unable to trust any of my kin, for
they are under the spell of my half-brother, who is said to be a great warrior instead of the coward he has shown himself to be.

It is the opinion of the holy hermit Meurisse, I must put my case to the Pope if ever I am to resolve it, and so I am committed to go to Roma and put my case before the Vicar of Christ and ask him to settle the matter once and for all. My half-brother might defy Moors and his peers, but he will not lose all by defying the Pope, if the soldiers truly fear the great man’s power. I am prepared to fight for what is mine, and I am certain that no one will wonder at my determination to do this, although it does mean I will not be in Touloza again for more than a year, and in that time, I cannot help you as you would like, for which I ask your understanding. Were you in my position, I know you would do no differently than I must do. Our fathers fought side by side, and that is a most worthy thing, and I am aware of the obligation under which such vassalage places me. Yet until my land and my soldiers are truly mine to command, I cannot comply with your request, for I am to set out in nine days’ time and already my preparations are underway. I can spare no men from my company to aid you, for they are escorting me.

Instead I am sending you a most worthy man: he speaks the language of the Moors and has traveled in their lands. He is called Ragoczy Germainus, although he is not German but from mountains far beyond the German lands. He is a learned and useful man, capable of smelting metals for weapons and treating wounds with medicaments of his own making. My men hold him in the highest regard, saying he is more formidable than a Moorish horseman. He journeys with a manservant called Rotiger who is from Gadez, or so he says. Ragoczy Germainus accords this servant great liberty and treats him as if they were comrades and not man and servant. He allows Rotiger to sleep in an antechamber on a bed rather than on a pallet outside his door; the two actually converse from time to time. You should find these two most useful, and capable of aiding you in your fight against the Moors at a time when I cannot. Man and master are devoted to one another, a devotion which you may be able to turn to your advantage, as I have done in the past. If you will look upon these two as indicative of my wish to aid you in your time of need, I will be most thankful, and will tell the Pope that I have done as much as I am able to in my present diminished state to put forth the cause of our people and our faith.

For bona fides, Ragoczy Germainus will bring with him a wax impression of my sigil, and by that you will know him. I must tell you he was at first reluctant to undertake this journey, but I have persuaded him through diverse means that his gifts would be far more useful to you than they presently are to me, and that his efforts on your behalf will earn my gratitude. Doubtless he has come to understand how crucial it is that he comply with my wishes in this regard, for if he fails to serve you well, he has friends here who will answer for his laxness. I should also tell you that the man plays a number of musical instruments, and will grace your court with songs and tales if you have need of such entertainments. He carries an Egyptian lyre with him; my men have listened to his singing many an evening, and joined in the better choruses. I have been glad of his service, and I am reluctant to sacrifice it, but either I must bring him to Roma with me, or I must send him to you, for if I leave him alone here, he is likely to be the target of my half-brother’s malice, who has sworn to kill all those who support me. Be good to him for my sake and you will be amply rewarded. He is more of a treasure than you know, and so you will discover for yourself. Do not think I have done a paltry thing in sending him to you, for nothing could be further from the truth.

I pray God will guard and protect you and all you hold dear. In these hard times, we must put our trust in the justice of God and the strength of His Son, Who has defeated the Devils in Hell for the sake of those suffering in Hell. I will remark on your fortitude to the Pope and speak well of your deeds everywhere I go, you have my pledged word on it. We both know what it is to have enemies in this world. No doubt you will come to think of them as the means by which God tests our souls and determines our worthiness as Christians, even as we under take the great tasks the world imposes upon us with purpose. May God defend my claim and reduce Perpontus to beggary and disgrace.

By the hand of Meiric the scribe,

Comites Egnacius of Touloza, his mark

four weeks after the Feast of the Kings, in the Year of Salvation 752

All day they had been heading uphill into the wind, hunched in their saddles over the bowed necks of their horses, their pluvials flapping around them like tethered wings, the three mules on the lead behind them laboring steadily along the merchants’ road. Of their week of hard travel, this day had proved the most demanding, for the climb was steeper now than it had been, and the weather more severe. Shreds of clouds streamed overhead, and grass and trees thrashed in the onslaught; the high peaks, still snowbound, leached the gentle spring warmth from the day. The noise was so great that both men refrained from speaking, knowing they would not be heard. When they finally stopped in late afternoon, picking a site near a stream at the edge of a copse of pine where they would have a good view of the road in both directions as well as a modicum of shelter, they came out of their saddles as if they had been in battle.

“What do you think?” Rotiger shouted as he loosened the girths and eased the saddle off the back of his dun mare. He was almost numb with fatigue, and knew their animals must feel much the same as he did. “Are we going to reach the pass by tomorrow night?”

It was a long moment before Ragoczy Germainus answered, and when he did he seemed preoccupied. “I think the horses will need a day of rest once we’re through the pass. I know I will.” He pitched his voice to carry. “At least we have not encountered snow yet. That would slow us down.” He was dressed in Byzantine fashion, in a short, belted dalmatica of heavy Chinese silk brocade showing phoenixes rising from their own ashes, surrounded by blazing red halos. His Persian leggings of heavy black silk had a decorated band down the center-front of his legs, on which was embroidered his eclipse device in silver. His pluvial of black wool was lined with wolf-fur. Only his thick-soled Frankish heuse revealed where he had begun this journey.

“Rest may be more difficult to get than you anticipate,” said Rotiger. “What with the fighting still going on.”

Ragoczy Germainus paused in his fixing the hobbles to his gray’s front legs. “I would like to think you and I have learned to avoid fighting.” The light, ironic note concealed his darker intent.

“When it is possible,” said Rotiger, repeating it more loudly when he realized Ragoczy Germainus had not heard him.

“Do you think it will not be now?” Ragoczy Germainus asked, standing upright again to reach into his saddlebag for a handful of grain; he offered this to the gray, who whuffled in pleasure. “See that they all have a measure of oats,” he said to Rotiger. “I will try to find wood enough for a small fire.” He stared up into the tattered sky. “Although it may be unwise to light one in this wind.”

“Truly,” said Rotiger, nodding to show he understood. As he took oats from Ragoczy Germainus’ saddlebag, he asked, “How long do you plan to remain here? Or have you decided yet?”

He came up behind Rotiger and spoke loudly over the moaning gale, “Oh, no more than half the night. The horses and mules will be rested enough by then and the moon is nearly full. We should get across the crest tonight if the wind dies down. If not, we will seek shelter in one of those monasteries on the crags.”

“If they have not been razed completely,” said Rotiger, the melancholy tone making his voice hollow.

Ragoczy Germainus halted. “You are not sanguine about this venture, are you.”

“No, I am not,” said Rotiger bluntly. “I am troubled that we are returning to Hispania so soon after we left; you say it is necessary that we do, and that may be so, but I believe it is too soon. It could lead to difficulties.” He offered a handful of grain to his mare, and, while she ate, went on stubbornly. “This is unlike you. It is all well and good to say that it has changed a great deal in the last thirty years: the mountains, and those who dwell in them, have not.”

“Perhaps not,” said Ragoczy Germainus. “But it is unlikely we will have much contact with them. They are still east of Usca, and we are going to the west.” He looked up the slope. “I am more concerned about snow.”

“So am I, if there is no fighting,” Rotiger pointed out.

“Of course; if there is no fighting.” He went off to find dried bits of wood, letting his pluvial fly out around him as he walked. The cold bite of the wind had no impact on him, nor had the gathering darkness. He made his way into the copse, looking for downed branches and dry scrub. His arms were soon laden with bits of tinder and enough dry wood to fuel their fire for half the night. He carried his gleanings back to where Rotiger was brushing down the mules, having stacked their saddles and their burdens a few steps away.

“The younger jenny has a swelling in her off-side hock,” said Rotiger as Ragoczy Germainus prepared to lay a fire for them. “I don’t know if she can carry her packs.”

“How bad is it?” Ragoczy Germainus asked as he put down the rest of his wood and tinder more haphazardly than he had intended. He went to inspect the jenny for himself, and found the hock hot to the touch and somewhat enlarged. “I will make a poultice for her,” he said as he patted the mule on the rump.

“Very good,” said Rotiger, to make it clear he had heard his master.

“I am going to make a shelter for the fire. There are stones enough to do that,” Ragoczy Germainus said, and began at once to select stones of fist-size and larger. When he had made a pile about as high as his knee, and darkness was full upon them, he scraped on the earth, sweeping away leaves and twigs, then laid out a pan of stones, making a rim at the edge. There he put his tinder and fuel, then took flint-and-steel from the wallet that hung from his belt and patiently worked to strike a spark to the tinder.