Rebels of Babylon (14 page)

“Then …” he said, “ … there are four now. Only four left.” He looked at me as earnestly as a parson stares at sin. “But if the legend is true … what is said … then let us hope that the blade that has been destroyed was the accursed one.”

Now, all of this was beginning to sound like a fisherman’s tale to me. Some sort of Frenchified method of haggling to squeeze out every penny from the customer.

He turned to my companion. “Ah,
Monsieur
Barnaby … please … in the bottom drawer of my desk … the armagnac. There are glasses, you will see them …”

Mr. Barnaby’s concern with a late arrival at Mrs. Aubrey’s appeared to have vanished. But then he always liked to hear a tale. He was a great reader, as I had discovered one night in Mississippi, although he always read in the same book. Twas a matter I intended to discuss with him. Once my mouth forgave me for its sufferings.

“But we must sit!” the old fellow said. “No, no. First … take up the blade again. Take it up! It wishes to be touched, I think. Unsheathe it. Let it feel the light of the lamp, the warmth …”

I took it into my hand once more, drawing the slender blade. Feather-light and substantial at the same time, it was instantly familiar, unmistakable. When I lifted it up to the light, the blade seemed to come to life in my hand, to grip me in return.

“Now put it down,
monsieur
… let it rest, it has been surprised. Let it listen to its own history … perhaps it will have something to tell us in return?”

Mr. Barnaby stepped back in, bearing a bottle that looked all too suspicious. But the good fellow, bless him, only carried two glasses.

“The major don’t take liquors and such,” he explained to
Monsieur
Beyle.

The old Frenchy gave me a glance that was less than approving. But his disappointment passed. As soon as Mr. Barnaby had poured the glasses a quarter full, the old fellow knocked his back and smacked his lips.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I should begin with the old Saracen … or should I start with the young Englishman and his dreams?” He tutted. “They are both dead now, of course. God rest their souls …”

As he spoke I found it difficult to stop myself from staring at the sword-cane. I coveted the weapon. And covetous thoughts of any sort are un-Christian.

“But I am a foolish old man. It is only right to start with the Englishman.” The old fellow’s eyes, sharp and immediate until then, seemed to drift, to lose their interest in myself and Mr. Barnaby. “Yes, to start with the Englishman.”
Monsieur
Beyle raised an eyebrow. “He was not … as it has been told to me … the sort of Englishman to which one objects. Not at all! He was a romantic young man, quite handsome
et très gentil . .
. an aristocrat of deeper lineage than pockets, who had fallen under the spell of the famous Lord Byron. In the matters of the poetry, I would say, not in the misuse of ladies and the bad behavior. It is said the young man was present when this wild English poet expires of the sickness while fighting the Turks. And that the young man is intoxicated with the poet’s notions of freedom and
la guerre pour la libertè …
the fighting for the liberty. The famous Lord Byron has said to him
en passant
that five men of good heart can bring down a tyrant.”

The old fellow frumped his chin and let his eyes roll gently. “Ah, but the Lord Byron’s life proved otherwise, I think. Still, the young Englishman is romantic, he sees the dream, not the reality. For him, such ideas are like the first great passion for a woman, the love one never forgets. He resolves that he will be like the—I think it is ‘knight-errant,’
non
? And he is like other Englishmen in one regard. He loves Italy, where reality is not important to him, only the dream of what he thinks Italy must be. It is, I believe, more than thirty years ago. Some years more, I think. The Bourbons have returned to the Sicilies, to Napoli, as if Bonaparte has never been. And this Englishman does not see the Naples that is real before him, no,
monsieur,
but the romantic dream of this city and its people, who are in truth no better than people in every city. Oh, they have tasted some freedom in the years of Napoleon, but it is all gone now. And not so much missed, I think, for freedom is not an affair of the poor, who have other interests. But the Englishman resolves to liberate the people of this kingdom. With only himself and four others.”

The old man sighed. “But how is he to find the four others? That must wait, because he is not in Naples when he decides it must be free to become a republic. No, he is not there where he can see this city or smell it or hear its cries. He is in a place faraway, in Damascus, because the Englishman always goes where he is not asked, where he is not desired. He is in Damascus, which is ruled by the Turk, but he is an Englishman with a pass and maybe a little lost in the soul when he wakes in the night and decides he will save Naples from the House of Bourbon. He is in Damascus and he decides he will have five swords made of Damascene steel, secret blades that will be concealed in the canes of gentlemen, each one identical, each to be carried by a member of his brotherhood of five.”

The old man nodded faintly to Mr. Barnaby, who poured him another quarter glass of liquor. But the fellow began to speak again before drinking. “Until then, I think, he is only the mad Englishman. But somehow, I cannot say, he becomes acquainted with an old Saracen.” He smiled lightly, showing
amber teeth. “Even older than I am, perhaps? I cannot say this, either. But he is old, the Saracen who will make the blades. And perhaps he is not even a Mohammedan? He may be a secret Jew, whose family brought the secrets of forging steel from Toledo. Or perhaps he is a disguised Christian, one of those whose faith is so select and so contrary it has been persecuted by all? One who passes down the secret knowledge the churches slaughter thousands to destroy? But perhaps he is only a Sufi, after all. One of the lesser sort, not even descended from the Assassins. Still, one whose ways are never what they seem. But this is too much to tell to you. You do not care for such details.”

He took up his glass and sniffed the liquor. You might have thought him a young man enjoying the scent of his sweetheart. He sipped daintily now, licking his lips with a slow, gray tongue.

“But the five blades are forged! They are fitted to five identical canes, as the Englishman wishes. He admires the steel and is glad to pay the little price asked, but he does not perhaps see how the old Saracen looks at him, how his eyes are so strong. The Englishman is not serious when the old Arab tells him that he has put a special quality into the blades, that he has whispered to them in the fire, saying protected words, and that each blade will take the character of the man who first uses it to draw blood. The Englishman thinks this is only the foolishness and superstition of the East. And we must declare him to be correct,
n’est-ce pas
? But of course, he is right!”

The old man drank again. This time he closed his eyes, perhaps to savor, mayhaps to remember.

“But here it is! He returns, by which route I do not know, to Naples. There he has one friend among the Italians, a handsome, young, foolish man with whom he dreams of the brotherhood in the way that is so English and amiable in the young, so repellent in the old! And this Italian, who is a count—but there are so many counts in Italy!—he has a sister who is not beautiful, but more than that—she is the woman whose attraction does not engage the eye, but the soul. Oh, I do not mean that
she is ugly,
monsieur! Au contraire, au contraire!
Only that her beauty does not fit the beauty of which we think, that she slips past the eye to the deep place in a man. She is good, not bad. She loves this Englishman who loves her brother. But the English are so stupid! They know nothing of women, nothing,
mon cher Major!
He does not feel her love at all, but loves only his fantastic revolution … and the Italian friend who is like a brother, who brings to him two other young Italians, two who are truly brothers and who are perhaps the cousins of this young Italian count. It is Italy, who can say? There are four young men. Four of the sword-canes are distributed. Childish oaths are sworn, with great seriousness, with the seriousness of which only young men are capable, the
faux
seriousness of words that intoxicates the heart in the moment, but cannot last as long as the oath demands. Four to topple a dynasty supported by all the powers of Europe! Four! And who will be the fifth? That is the question!”

Closing his eyes as if he had drunk, he did not touch the glass. On its velvet bed, the blade gleamed. The sheath glistened beside it.

The old man cleared his throat. “But who will be the fifth man? To make the revolution? Who can be trusted among these … these inconstant Italians? Already things have become unhappy, because the two brothers who are cousins of the count are both stupidly in love with the sister who loves the Englishman only. I think it makes an opera for
Signor
Bellini, only it is far sadder, you will see.”

He tapped his knee. Four times. Then a fifth. “Who will be this
Monsieur Cinq?
Ah, there is a Frenchman. There is always a Frenchman in such stories. He is not yet old, but no longer young. Perhaps of forty years. He is, I am told, the youngest son of a good, but minor family. After Waterloo, their lands are restored to them, but not their wealth. But this son is not lazy. He is not like the others who inherit titles and mortgages. He is not ashamed to work. He leaves his commission in the cavalry because it is foolish to him. He cannot afford the fine uniforms
that are so important, and there is no war to fight. He makes business instead, which his family thinks is shameful. But he believes they are the fools to imagine that blood and pride will fill the belly. He works hard. In Paris, in this lovely Paris that is so sad now, where all the life is gone with the little Corsican. But he has the name and is not ugly in the face, he has the fine manners. He is even honest, I think. So he makes the success. He marries. He loves. He loves too much. When the cholera comes and his wife is robbed from him, his wife and the little boy … all his success is nothing.”

The old man smiled. “I think he is like our poor
Monsieur
Barnaby, no? He has loved like a gambler, staking all. And he has lost. The croupier is death, and he has lost everything. The love is everything, the rest nothing. All
perdu, perdu …
Still, he has money. Not so much. A little. Enough. He wanders. He goes to Spain, but there is nothing. Backwardness only, everything is of the past. He thinks he will go to the Americas. But the coach takes him to Avignon instead, then to Genoa, perhaps, or Pisa. In Italy, it is always like the gravity. Pulling him southward. He does not decide, he just goes. Firenze is too dark, too sad. It has too many ghosts of its own. Siena is a mortuary. In Roma, there are too many churches. They only make him think again of death. The society is decayed, it repels him. It is all false sweetness and a skeletal hand in the pocket. The women do not please him, though they wish to. Then he comes at last to Napoli, to Naples. The harbor is full, but his days remain empty. So he thinks that he will sail away. To Egypt, perhaps. The Orient. But he does not go.”

The old fellow closed his eyes for a moment, rallying the strength to continue his tale. “He does not go. Instead, he meets a young Englishman in contemplation of a
désolé
painting of Caravaggio. How do they become friends? Who can say? Perhaps the Frenchman finds the passion of the Englishman for this dirty city and its hopeless people
amusant,
a good entertainment? Or perhaps he needs to believe again? In anything. Perhaps the object does not matter, only the belief.”

He consumed a younger man’s gulp of liquor. His eyes cleared again, but in a troubling way.

“And the Englishman? What does
he
wish? Only for a fifth conspirator. The Frenchman sees at once that the younger man is a fool, if a charming one. Perhaps the Frenchman thinks it is all folly, that the folly will soon pass. But he is given his cane with great ceremony, he is sworn to make the revolution and free the people. And the truth is that he will fight, if it comes to blows, because he hardly cares for the life he is leading. He will fight, if only to be alive for a little time again.”

The old man shook his head mournfully. “But there is no revolution. It is Italy. There is only jealousy and betrayal. One of the brothers who are also cousins is stupidly in love. Perhaps both of them are in love. But one tells his love to the magnificent young woman who is not beautiful as we think of such things. He cannot live without her, he will die, she is more important than the revolution, than all things that exist! But she scorns him, she is annoyed. She tells him that her heart is given elsewhere, that there is no hope for him. He goes then to her brother, who does not think, who speaks before he thinks, who smiles and says that Marcella is in love with the Englishman, of course, only and always with the foolish, pretty Englishman, but perhaps things will be different after the revolution. Such a mad thing to say! And to laugh! The boy who has confessed his love is angry, he is furious. He goes at once to the Englishman, to challenge him! But the Englishman understands nothing of this matter of love. So the Italian who is in love thinks he is mocked, he draws his secret blade from the cane. The Englishman fights only to defend himself, he does not kill the Italian, but wounds him and the boy is carried off. His wound is not, perhaps, serious. Still, he confesses all, he tells everything to his brother. To his brother who is also in love with this
sirène.
And this second brother, who loves so much that he wishes them all dead, even his own flesh and blood, if only he will have this young woman for himself, this brother goes to the authorities and betrays the plot, even though it is hardly a
plot at all, but only the foolishness of young men who have no power and no sense.”

The proprietor sat as still as the wares that slumbered on his shelves, his white hair damp and limp. “They were, I am told, terrible times. With the secret police, secret prisons, torture still in use, as if the clock has gone backward. Instead of being rewarded, the brother who has informed is put in the prison, too, where he will die, I think. When the soldiers come to his bed of convalescence, the brother who is wounded attempts to fight. From his pillows. He swings his sword. The soldiers use their bayonets. The Italian count who is the Englishman’s first friend is surprised in the garden of his palazzo. He has with him only his conspirator’s sword-cane. But he, too, fights. With thirty, perhaps forty soldiers. They do not want to kill him, because they are only poor soldiers and his family is very old. They do not want trouble with anyone, only to do what they must. But he fights madly. In front of his sister, his mother. So they must kill him, too.”