The Codex Lacrimae (9 page)

After a brief stop for a change of clothes at Alex's military barracks near the Basilica Cistern, the large group set forth, intent on reaching the quays and dockyards of the Genoese Quarter.

As they walked, Clarinda reflected on the lengths that Alex was willing to go to help her find her father, but feared only that he might expect more than friendship in return.

Alexander was an enormous man, standing half a handspan above most people he met, heavily muscled, but of an athletic grace in his every movement that it was small wonder that he was one of the most sought-after bachelors in the seven-walled city. Indeed, he was as strapping and poised a young
signore
as any young
signorina
such as she could hope to find, but Clarinda simply had never felt the tug of romantic interest that had pulled him toward her since their first meeting as children.

Still, she knew he'd be a real catch for whatever woman he did wind up with. He'd just been promoted to the position of
hoplitarch
,
which meant that he commanded a small division of the Byzantine army and received many benefits. She smiled, knowing there'd never be romance between them. He'd always be her best friend, nothing more, no matter what his station in life. Her childhood memories simply didn't allow for the more mature roles that they were starting to each take in adulthood.

So even if Alex now stared at her some ten years older, fully a heavily muscled man and veteran soldier with responsibilities she could only begin to imagine, he still looked at her with a face she'd seen at each stage of growth. The curious expression on his face, though, still used the same bright and intelligent hazel eyes that shamefacedly looked despairingly at her years ago during a family picnic near the Black Sea when he'd gotten bitten on the rear by two storks.

“
What
?” Alex asked, discomfited by her look.

“Nothing.” Clarinda replied, glad for a happy memory when the evening's events made the world seem a little darker than it'd been before the mass. “I'm just wondering if we all have to call you ‘Hoplitarch Stratioticus' now that you're a big, bad soldier and have your own command.”

“You might,” Alex said, “and, now that you mention it, I think we'll make it mandatory for
you
,
especially if that smile means you're thinking about those darn storks again.” He looked thoughtfully at the ground. “Hoplitarch Stratioticus. Yes, I like the title. It'd sound very good coming from you, Clare.”

“Oh, please…” Clarinda said, rolling her eyes.

Genevieve turned to Clarinda as she fell into walking beside her friend and brother. “Now, Clare, this is really exciting. We're going on a true adventure. Do you really mean to go through with this?”

“I do,” Clarinda smiled. “I know that Padre's in trouble, and thanks to you all helping me, I think this is the best way to get to him.” She left unspoken that there was still much business to do before night's end.

“It's not fair,” Genie gave a false pout, “you get to have all the fun, going into the Genoese Quarter for a ‘secret meeting' while I go the bazaar with those two brats ahead.”

“It's not a secret anything, Genie — this is ship business, and other than your curiosity, there's nothing happening except negotiations and signing contracts.”

“The meeting's at a bar, Clare,” Genevieve said sarcastically, then smiled, “there doesn't have to be anything going on, the place itself is busy with ‘distractions,' if you know what I mean.”

“I thought you were engaged?” Alexander asked. “Shouldn't you be studying nursing or practicing how to take care of senior citizens or something? Father told me that your fiancé is almost as wide now as he is tall, and four times your age.”

“Oh, please, not another judgment lecture from Saint Alex,” Genevieve groaned. “Live for the moment, why don't you? You'd have me an old maid before starting my path. We can't all climb the military ladder, you know.” She glared at her brother. “And, for the record, he's three times my age.”

“Thanks for clearing that up — that makes it such a better image. Well, at least the social climbing I'll be doing is from an upright posi—” Alex started to say, but Clarinda interrupted him.

“This isn't your kind of tavern, Genie,” she said meaningfully to her friend. “Seriously. There'll be cutthroats and brigands there, which is why Alex is coming with me.”

“I could still quietly sit at the bar,” Genevieve protested, although both Clarinda and Alexander knew from the tone in her voice that the image painted no longer held an appeal for her.

“Here,” Clarinda said, handing her the leather pouch full of coins. “Go to the bazaar after we change and have a good time with Matthew and little Alexius.”

Genevieve smiled, looking at the leather pouch in her hand.

“Come on, Genie,” Clarinda said, “put that away before we reach the
Mese
and enjoy a night on the town.”

Genie smiled. “I feel as if you two are gaming me as much as you did Father. But, if a night on the town and free shopping is manipulation, I'll take the coins and run!”

Silence fell upon the small group as Constantinople darkened into full night. The street lamps on corners near the Adrianople Gate revealed some soldiers who saluted Alex as he passed. Tendrils of misty air steadily advanced, enshrouding in a gray mantle the Harbor of Eleutherion and then moving to capture Clarinda and her friends in its embrace.

Clarinda shivered. Alex noticed and lent her his short cloak. She accepted the kindness, but she wasn't cold — she was afraid. The encounter in the basilica had disturbed her greatly, filled as it'd been with dire predictions from Urd and the fact that a name had finally been given to the second robed man of her dreams: Servius Aurelius Santini.

At the identification, Clarinda in a flash of awareness had understood the young man's athleticism and comfortability with a sword. How could the hero of the Battle of Mecina be otherwise? The stories from Syria about that battle grew and regrew with each telling, adding mythical qualities to the essential fact that Santini had turned back Saladin's army in one of the emir's few defeats.

But, as with any good legend, the saga had ended with Santini and Saladin battling each other in personal combat. The Christian hero then lost his head in a glorious sacrifice that selflessly guaranteed the safe flight of the pilgrims, villagers, and Hospitaller brethren. The body of Servius Aurelius Santini burned afterwards in a funeral pyre that lit the skies around the military shrine for days.

And so on, and so on. God, she'd heard so many stories about the Battle of Mecina that the topic bored her! Her best friend, Pasquale, made the cleverest jibe one evening: he'd drunkenly asked a devout storyteller why he'd omitted from the Mecina story all the angelic choirs that must've been there singing as Santini was bodily raised into Heaven to take his seat somewhere between God, the Son, and Mother Mary.

In her mind's eye, Clarinda saw the young man of her vision leaping across the pool.

She almost growled with frustration. The notion that her knight was
that
Santini simply was impossible. The man whom Urd called her Hospitaller was Clarinda's own age, perhaps a year or two older, but five years ago at Mecina he would've been, what? thirteen? fourteen? Impossible to conceive that at such an age the young man had led the victorious Christian defense of Mecina.

Unimaginable! How could Clarinda ever love someone like that? Someone to whom violence was second-nature? To whom religion was something not to inspire and inform a life, but to justify killing anyone who wasn't of the same belief?

She understood violence, and herself had learned to fight under Pasquale's tutelage while on board the
Maritina
,
but she'd
never
understand the religious fervor that set believers against unbelievers in wars that each side expected to yield some kind of approval from their respective God.

There was no resolving the dilemma, so Clarinda turned her face upward to the fog-laden air and tried to refresh herself while walking.

Logic and order.
Primo, get our goods sold and underway. Secondo, find Padre in Caesarea. Terzo, deal with Servius Aurelius Santini if and when I ever meet him.

They reached the beginning of the dockyards where they needed to meet Pasquale.

“Alex,” Clarinda started to say, and then hesitated. She felt guilty and wanted to say something because she knew that if she let him come with her without explaining the Norn's prophecy, she'd intentionally be sending Alexander a different signal than just friendship.

Gain your ship with the help of the Stratioticus children, and take the warrior-born, Alexander, with you.

Urd's words thrummed in her ears as Alexander looked down at her, and the adoration in his eyes almost physically hurt her.

“Yes, Clarinda?”

“
Niente
…nothing,” she said.

At some point, she'd have to explain to him what had happened with Urd, but he was even more practical minded than her. She knew that he'd find the idea that she was training to be a Norn and destined to fall in love with a dead Hospitaller war-hero completely unbelievable.

“I may ask you later, but, for now,
niente
.
Let's go meet Pasquale. I want to get out of this city.”

Chapter 5

A Market Day, Interrupted

Back on the morning of Ibn-Khaldun's arrival at the Krak — some four weeks in Clarinda's future — the Muslim scholar's tone was urgent.

“I need to see Ríg immediately,” Ibn-Khaldun said to Pellion, his voice rising above the cacophonous sounds echoing toward them down the corridor.

The entry tunnel lay behind the great gate of the Krak des Chevaliers, lit by torches set into wrought-iron sconces. Two grassy fields ran expansively along the near embankment, opening onto the water of the moat so that the knights' horses and livestock would be well fed and watered even during a siege.

Hundreds of people shuffled back and forth on the walkway, the noises of the weekly market day increasing in volume as Ghannen's caravan made its way into the castle.

“
Certainement
,
” Pellion replied, trying to keep pace with Ibn-Khaldun, Rebecca, and Jacob at the head of the group, and motioning for a page to assist him. “I believe Ríg's in the infirmary. This lad will take all your bags, too.”

“No...,” Ibn-Khaldun demurred, even now hearing the hissing, sibilant whispers arising again from the thing in the saddlebag.

Nine songs magical sing I, goblet-sipped from Bestla's mead…
.

“No, Pellion, I'll carry this bag,” the elderly man finished with some effort, then nodded towards Rebecca and Jacob. “My guests here, however, will need a vacant pilgrim's cell. Now, about Ríg. Is he hurt?”

“No,
he
isn't injured, but tending to some knights who just returned from a mission.”

“I see. So, Brother Perdieu took Ríg from the library again, eh?”

Pellion's smile showed even in the torchlight. “You guessed it. The duke thinks that Squire Ríg's time would be better spent honing knightly skills than sharpening quills.”

“We'll see about that,” Ibn-Khaldun said, sighing. “I suppose that the hospital is better than fencing in the practice yards.” He paused. “Were any of the mission's party seriously injured?”

“No, but about those men, you
should
know that –” the rest of Pellion's reply was lost as the Muslim scholar and his three companions emerged from the archway and into a flurry of activity. The castle dwellers appeared to be preparing for the siege while simultaneously tending to the daily needs of castle business, and on this particular occasion that meant conducting the weekly market day.

The lowing and bleating of the animals filled the early morning air of the outer ward. Two shepherds directed countless Nubian goats along the curtain wall toward the two open fields, while fine particles of dirt plumed in spirals around the shuffling feet of men and women who hastened to and fro.

The elderly man felt as if he'd been transported somehow onto the streets of a major metropolitan city, people shouting here and there in Arabic, French, and Hebrew. Two teams of donkeys brayed in frustration as they pulled wagons overladen with lengths of sawn and red acacia trees. A group of six women watched some laughing children play with wooden sticks in mock combat.

Across from the women, a dozen men in kaftans sat cross-legged in a semicircle, drinking warmed, saffron-flavored milk. Ibn-Khaldun smiled. Be there an army on the doorstep (or two!), these men were determined to start the morning as they had every other day of their lives: with a cup of the warmed drink that – along with a bit of conversation – served as a staple in this part of the world.

“We part here, my friend,” Ibn-Khaldun said to Pellion when they'd reached the portcullised gate opposite the market.