Path of the Eclipse (27 page)

“No!” Masashige yelled, and tried to leap to the boulder immediately below Saint-Germain, where he would be able to get a clear stroke. His yell turned to a scream as he missed his footing and fell.

Saint-Germain kept to his place on the outcropping, his francisca ready. He watched Saito Masashige get to his feet, shaking his head as he reached for his katana.

“Don’t make me kill you,” Saint-Germain said quietly.

The realization that he had been completely vulnerable and yet was spared filled Masashige with sickening shame. He stared at the katana in his hands, and then up at Saint-Germain and the ax. Then his eyes traveled to each of the knives protruding from Saint-Germain’s body, and he paled.

Eight horsemen had come out of the fortress and had halted at the place where the combatants faced each other. The foremost rider, a balding man with eyes permanently narrowed by failing sight, addressed the two. “I command you to stop.”

Saito Masashige’s face sagged and he could no longer meet Saint-Germain’s penetrating eyes. “If that is your wish, Warlord Mon,” he muttered.

“It is. A man who fights as this one does deserves our honor. In all the years you have been with me, Masashige, no one has bested you.” He turned his attention to Saint-Germain. “I heard you call yourself Shih Ghieh-Man.”

“That is correct, Mon Chio-Shing,” Saint-Germain told him, after a troubled glance at Masashige.

“You’re aptly named: only a powerful magician could continue to fight with those knives in him.” He motioned to one of the other horsemen. “Attend to him.”

Saint-Germain bowed slightly, and for the first time felt the full impact of the tenacious pain of the knives. “My servant,” he said with a suddenly weak gesture toward Rogerio, “will attend me.” To his consternation he saw that this simple statement had appalled Saito Masashige even more. “You are an extraordinary fighter,” he said, studying the closed face, but seeing little.

“You are welcome at Chui-Cho fortress,” Mon Chio-Shing said with as formal a bow as his saddle would permit.

What was it, Saint-Germain asked himself, that so horrified Saito Masashige? He might have asked the man himself, but then Rogerio was waiting at the foot of the rocks, and the knives seemed to be expanding in his flesh, and it was too much trouble to speak, or to think.

A letter from Olivia in Rome to Saint-Germain in Lo-Yang. The mendicant friar carrying the letter to the merchant outpost in Turkestan was captured by deserting European soldiers from the Crusade; the friar and the letters entrusted to him were destroyed.

To Ragoczy Sanct’ Germain Franciscus in the city of Lo-Yang, which may or may not exist, Olivia sends her most earnest greetings from Rome:

Your letter, which has been on the road more than two years, surprised me, and made me aware of how very much I miss you. Your memory has lain in the back of my mind, dozing, and needed only the sight of your eclipse seal to come fully awake.

Perhaps I should tell you that the last letter I had from you before this one arrived more than twenty years ago, at which time you informed me that you were going east along the Old Silk Road. It was shortly after the Jews were banished from France and that mob in Lyon put three of our blood to the torch. You told me that the knights were spoiling for another Crusade, and that they would probably practice on anyone they could label a heretic. Well yes, you were right about that.

Tell me, have you found the haven you wished for? When you were there before, you said that the people respect learning and put high value on tolerance. But that was centuries ago, my friend. Is it as you remember? I confess that I hope it may be, so that you will not have to bear so much. The suffering endured by those of our blood is terrible to think of, but is isolation the only alternative? I have lived in Rome a very long time and have learned, as you said I would, to live in a way that attracts little notice. Surely you could live here with me. After all, this is your house, and has been for more than a thousand years. Come here to me and return to a familiar place. I promise you that you will be protected—I will let it be known that an eccentric relative will be sharing the villa, and your way will be smooth.

By the way, I think you will like the way the north wing has been rebuilt. You gave me permission to make alterations, and I think that what has been done will please you. The builders were most upset, but followed the orders they were given. The atrium has been widened and is a proper court now. There is a gallery around the second floor so that all the rooms have access to the court. It is not unlike the house we shared in Tyre. You see, I have never forgotten. Though I have not seen you, heard your voice or your footfall for more than four hundred years, yet they are familiar to me, and I will catch myself waiting for them.

You have probably not heard that the English King John has at last submitted to the Pope. Everyone in Rome is busy taking credit for this, and His Holiness is unbearably smug about it. I don’t mention it, of course, but I feel sympathy for John. That brother of his was impossible. He put all of his kingdom in debt and went off to war with never so much as a moment’s doubt that his debts would be paid. And to make it worse, he never made a wife of his Queen. If Richard Lion-Heart had been able to overcome his inclinations long enough to produce an heir, matters would be different in England. Certainly Richard was a splendid leader in war, very brave, a superb warrior, and so forth. But these Crusades are insanity, and Richard’s devotion to war, I think, was at least partly spawned by his reluctance to touch Barengaria. It is an unfortunate prejudice in a king. Other men may have their pages and apprentices and students and urchins, but for a king to spurn his wife, that is another matter. If he could not endure her at all, he could have found her a discreet lover and said the child was his. That has happened often enough before. So England went to John and now Pope Innocent is preening like a cock on a dunghill.

Tomorrow I will give this letter into the hands of a Cypriot captain bound for Thessaly. He has promised to hand it to a merchant or a friar going East. He has warned me that there are not so many travelers now, as there are rumors of great wars in the East and devils coming out of the desert to plunder the land. For your sake, I trust that this is not the case, and that a small band of brigands has been improved upon in the telling until a handful of men have become an army. It will take time for this to reach you, but when it does, know it for what it is, dearest Sanct’ Germain—the cry of my soul to you.

Perhaps it is true that we are doomed to live as outcasts much of the time, and perhaps it is true that if our natures were generally known we would be loathed, hunted and killed by those who believe the worst of what is strange. But, Sanct’ Germain, no one has loved me as devotedly as you have. The bond that began that night when I watched you come into my chambers and was filled with terror has never been broken. Do you remember how kindly you used me that night? Without the strength of your love, I would have died before I was thirty. And do not remind me with that wry smile I like so well that I did die before I was thirty. It is not the same thing, and you know it. No one, my friend, no one has loved me as you have. That has sustained me for more than a thousand years, and will doubtless continue to do so until the true death claims me.

How morbid I sound, and here I am trying to persuade you to return. Pay no attention to anything I say, but that I love you, have always loved you.

I must end this before I become maudlin. It would not do for me to attend the reception for the King of Aragon in a distraught humor. It is times like these when I wish I had not lost the ability to weep, for tears might cleanse me. But red and swollen eyes will not become me, so I will tell myself that I was fortunate when the change deprived me of weeping, and my soul will mourn. Doubtless someone will provide me a distraction, and, who knows—I may find someone who will want to share my pleasures.

And you, my dearest, have you found someone to share your pleasures, or are you still alone? If there were anything I might do to give you that which you seek, though it ended my life, I would do it. Empty words, with you so far away from me.

I have sent for my servant and have given orders for my palanquin, so I must bid you farewell for a time.

From my own hand on the Feast of St. Matthew, in the 1214th year of Our Lord, in Rome,

Olivia

3

Saint-Germain opened his eyes. “How long?” he asked Rogerio, who stood beside the chest where his master lay.

“Three days,” was the carefully neutral answer.

He paused in his rising. “Three days?” His hand touched the places where the knives had struck his side and his shoulder, and felt only slight tenderness.

“You bled a great deal.” Rogerio’s features betrayed nothing, but his eyes were not so well schooled and they were dark with distress.

“I must have.” He sat up slowly. “This is Chui-Cho fortress?”

“Yes.” Rogerio busied himself with putting out Saint-Germain’s clothes.

“The old man … I remember he asked us in.” He put his hands to his temples. “There was a large room, I remember, and archers, but…”

“You collapsed there. I asked that you be carried to a quiet room and your chests brought. I told them that you had to perform a certain ritual because of the combat.” There was a slight, telling pause. “I … I didn’t think it would take this long.”

Saint-Germain raised his head. “You told them the truth: this is a ritual of a sort. Three days, though.” He swung his feet down to the floor and stood gingerly. “I’m weak,” he admitted, chagrined.

Rogerio did not trust himself to respond. He placed the black silk sheng liao within easy reach and held out Persian leggings. “The Warlord Mon Chio-Shing has requested you to give him the pleasure of your company as soon as you have risen.”

“Indeed.” He put his hands to the shenti knotted around his waist and noticed for the first time that the room was cold. “Has there been snow?”

“The wind has shifted and it comes off the mountains,” Rogerio said as he took the shenti, his eyes turned away from Saint-Germain’s naked body and the wide white scars that covered his abdomen.

Saint-Germain drew the leggings on, fingering the rapidly fading mark of Saito Masashige’s knife. He tied the leggings at his waist and fitted the leather codpiece into place when Rogerio handed it to him. “What hour of the day is it?” he asked as he reached for the sheng liao.

“It is late afternoon. The fourth meal began not long ago. They keep to the old ways here, five meals instead of four.” Rogerio had folded the shenti, and had taken a collar of silver links from the Roman chest. He gave this to Saint-Germain and adjusted the pectoral with its black eclipse disk and raised wings on his master’s chest.

“I have been struck,” Saint-Germain said with an attempt at lightness, “by the thought that I would have certain difficulties without you, Rogerio, since I cast no reflection. How would I be sure that my collar is correctly centered, or that I have not got a smudge on my face if you were not here.”

Rogerio knew this gesture for what it was, but could not entirely accept Saint-Germain’s affection. “You dress by touch, and need no one to make you elegant.” He was busy with the Roman chest, not looking at his master when he felt the small hand on his shoulder.

“My friend,” Saint-Germain said kindly, “I am trying, in my awkward way, to tell you that I value all you have done for me. I know that I owe you my … life many times over. And of late, my bitterness has…” He broke off. He could say nothing more, though he wished that he might find that one, graceful phrase that would let Rogerio know he was aware of the hazards his servant had accepted so readily.

“Without you, those human jackals would have killed me, and my bondholder would have gone untouched by the law and the state. As to your bitterness, how can you not be bitter? I am often amazed, my master, for I think I would be lost to cynicism had I endured what you have.” It was clearly his last word on the matter.

“You didn’t know me in the beginning,” Saint-Germain said, and left it at that. “Have you learned your way around this place?”

“There are stairs at the end of the hall. They lead to the second floor, where the reception rooms are.” His face relaxed a bit. “Warlord Mon will be relieved to see you. He has been pestering me since yesterday to send you to him.”

Saint-Germain nodded absently. “Then perhaps he should be notified that I am waiting for the opportunity to meet him.” His dark eyes were distant. “Why did she insist on dying? What did it gain her?”

Wisely, Rogerio said nothing, but the anguish in Saint-Germain’s voice touched him as well. He closed the Roman chest.

As he opened the door, Saint-Germain turned to Rogerio. “What has become of Tzoa Lem and our ponies?”

“They are all well-housed. Tzoa Lem is having the time of his life. There are three kitchen maids competing for his favors and wooing him with food.” He was able to smile at this. “He is in no hurry to leave.”

“Hardly surprising.” He did not ask about Saito Masashige, for he did not want to learn that his superb adversary had been treated badly for not besting him. “I don’t know how long I will be,” Saint-Germain admitted, and closed the door.

The hallway was narrow and ill-lit. Though the inside of the fortress was largely of wood, there was still the feeling of dank stones, of moss and chill. Saint-Germain walked swiftly, his heeled boots clicking on the worn floorboards, each creating a small hail of echos. He passed only one servant, who stared at Saint-Germain with eager dread. On the stairs, Saint-Germain once again had a moment of giddy weakness, then it was past, and he continued to the lower level, his face fixed with an expression of good humor that he could not feel inwardly.

A houseman bowed Saint-Germain toward the reception room, remaining in the door as Saint-Germain made his way to one of the low chairs by the narrow windows. Then the servant indicated the most profound respect and left Saint-Germain alone.