The Devil's Crossing

by Hana Cole

  Rising from the dust, he shadowed the French boy until he arrived at a line of battered lean-tos abutting the western most wall of the town. Sitting on the threshold was a bald, overweight man in stained overalls, whose Mediterranean colouring could have made him Italian as easily as North African. The young boy set down his pail and emptied a few coins into the man’s hand for which he received a pat on the head before disappearing behind the curtain of the hovel.

  Gui purchased a bag of sugared almonds and a meat-stuffed bread. Then,

  making use of great stone pillars that belonged to palaces of a forgotten age, he waited under the rays of a white, winter sun. Still, it was hot enough to burn his skin and his neck stung when, in the late afternoon, his patience was rewarded and the boy re-emerged. His blond curls were patted down with oil, his face wiped clean, lips a pinky sheen. He looked a grim imitation of a nobleman’s child scrubbed up for Advent mass. A large, hide-bound portfolio was wedged awkwardkly under his arm, and he cast around before he scuttled off, eyes to the ground.

  A few streets on and the boy stalled at the threshold of a courtyard. Taking the document wallet out from under his arm he muttered a few words to himself. Gui seized his chance.

  ‘Please don’t be frightened,’ he began. The boy’s mouth opened, and for one dreadful moment, Gui thought he was going to shout out.

  ‘Please,’ he implored with a desperation that the boy seemed to sense was genuine. ‘Are you hungry?’ Gui asked and the boy nodded.

  His conscience was a hod of bricks on his back as he offered the bribe to the poor urchin before him. The meat-stuffed bread glistened with the oil, and the boy’s eyes lit up like Gui had performed the miracle of the fish and loaves. His leather wallet slapped onto the ground as the boy snatched it and began devouring the bread like a stray dog falling upon the contents of an upturned cart. For a heart beat the warmth of parental satisfaction spread across Gui’s face as he watched the ravenous child. All at once, his mind flew to Etienne. Is my own son this hungry?

  He squatted down on his haunches and said, ‘Can you tell me how you got here?’

  Inches from the boy’s face now, Gui could see clearly the berry-pink lips were stained, the blue eyes lined with kohl. The world beneath his feet began spinning as Gui made sense of what the boy’s appearance was telling him.

  Grease dripping from his chin, the child raised his head reluctantly from the feast and threw a glance down the street. Hastily he crammed in the last morsels of the bread. His eyes darted down to the spilled wallet, face clouding – the happy interlude was over.

  ‘I have to give these papers to a man,’ he said.

  ‘Let me do it.’ Gui snatched up the wallet.

  ‘No!’ The boy exclaimed, alarmed. He wasn‘t able to meet Gui’s eye as he said, ‘No, he wants me.’

  ‘But I don’t want anything from you,’ Gui insisted. ‘If you come with me, I will make sure you are safe. I swear it.’

  The boy hovered in indecision. Gui knew he only had a heart beat to sway him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Simon,’ the boy replied.

  ‘I’m Gui and I’m from Courville near Chartres.’

  ‘Beaucaire,’ said the boy as he wiped the grease from his chin with the back of his hand, leaving a pink smear across his face. Gui pulled down the sleeve of his own tunic and cleaned the remaining lip stain from the boy’s face. Simon smiled shyly. Someone used to take care of you once, Gui thought.

  ‘Were you part of the shepherd’s crusade?’ Gui asked.

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘I’m orphan. I was taken from the children’s home of the Sisters of the Good Courage not long after I arrived.’

  ‘The Sisters of Good Courage?’ Gui puckered up his face like he was sucking on a lemon and Simon laughed.

  ‘They were horrible old crones with hairy cheeks,’ he replied and Gui knew he had won. Gui chuckled along, a deep, jolly sound that made him think of his friend Philippe and wonder if he was dead or alive.

  Simon took Gui to within two streets of where he said he was taken when he first arrived, but not even a whole bag of sugared almonds would make him go an inch further, so Gui dispatched the child to Yalda with a few dinar in the hope she would take pity.

  A series of warehouses were set around a quadrangle. Fondaco dei Veneziani proclaimed the sign: The Venetian’s Warehouse. Each large Mediterranean city had its own warehouse complex in major port towns. All traded goods from that city were logged and stored there, with an adjunct hostel for merchants and travellers.

  The traffic ebbed and flowed - barrels, crates, donkey-drawn pallets. Simon said he had been unloaded there by an Italian merchant with a dozen others, but his account was inconsistent and he wasn’t able to give Gui any kind of likely timeframe. Other than a Nubian slave carrying water, Gui could see no sign of trade in human souls.

  It was nearly time for evening prayer and men clustered aimlessly on the streets, their arms full of the remnants of the day – bundles of mystery goods tied up in cotton sacks, carts with shaky iron wheels emptied of their wares, huge terracotta flagons that spilled fat drops of liquid. A couple of Mamluk officers exited a tavern opposite, weaving drunkenly. A man in the crisp, white religious dress of the Mohameddans crossed the street to avoid them.

  Gui’s shirt was stuck to his back. He slowed his breath to stop his heart hammering, pulled his shoulders back, and with military gait, approached the administrator’s office at the Venetian Fondaco.

  The man’s faced was poised in outrage as Gui leaned over his desk and said, ‘I’m the governor’s new inspector and I’m here to renegotiate the rates on a few items.’

  The administrator eyed him with distaste. Muslim governors only employed renegade Christians who had renounced their faith to deal with European traders. They were regarded with a mixture of contempt and fear.

  ‘The tariffs were only revised last month,’ the Venetian said cautiously.

  ‘Not all of them, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘The alcohol you sell to the Mamluks, for example…prohibited by the governor.’ Gui flicked his eyebrows up with a glare that said, see what you get for your own self importance.

  The clerk blinked rapidly.

  ‘And the European slaves you wouldn’t want your Senate to find out about.’ Gui sucked his teeth. ‘I wonder what they would say if they found out you were short changing them with profit from undeclared booty that could get the whole of Venice excommunicated.’

  The clerk’s eyes widened indignantly. ‘Wait here.’ He snapped his quill down on the desk and pushed his chair from the desk, scraping it along the tiled floor.

  The instant he was gone, Gui peeled up a fistful of papyri and began flicking through the ledgers. His heart sank as he scanned through page after page of receipts for barrels of wine, oil, linens, invoices for loans, inheritances. A breath or two later and he could hear voices echoing across the courtyard. He grabbed another ledger, this time stamped with the crossed keys of the Vatican that he had seen on a ship docked at Corsica.

  Hungrily he scanned the script for something he might recognise. Jumping ahead to the notes at the bottom of the stack, he moved his thumb to re-order the papers, and his eye caught a familiar name: Roberto Sandolino. Footsteps were just the other side of the door. Stuffing as many of the sheets as he could into the back of his hose, he dropped the stack of documents as the clerk reappeared with a bull of a man who stroked his pitted head as the clerk said, ‘This…gentlemen says he is the governor’s new renegade, here to renegotiate some of the special tariffs.’

  Even from several paces away Gui could smell aniseed and alcohol vapours oozing from the other man.

  ‘Does he now.’ Throat rattling with phlegm as he spoke, the Venetian soldier fingered his belt where his weapon hung. There was nothing Gui could do but double down on his gamble. He brought his hands together, interlaced his fingers and pinched his lips like a disappoi
nted Latin master considering the cane.

  ‘Muslim soldiers are rolling drunk in the streets, every corner you can find Christian boys peddled as concubines. The imams are blaming the current drought on sin. A public repentance has been ordered for next week and the governor intends to clamp down. It would be expedient to make sure you are not one of the ones he makes an example of.’

  The clerk raised his shoulders in a mocking shrug. ‘It is quite a serious thing for the governor to accuse us of profiting from piracy.’

  Gui stood firm. ‘The governor wants an additional ten percent on the alcohol and five flaxen-haired boys to gift to his allies.’

  The Venetian soldier shook his head. ‘Haven’t got any left. The order book is already overflowing with requests from Tartar princelings and the blonds are not easy to get hold of. The only white ones I’ve got now are Slavs. Girls from Russ. I’ve got a couple of boys of around ten years from the Black Sea that aren’t quite white.’ He grinned, baring stained teeth. ‘But they are ready to go.’

  Gui’s stomach turned. Slowly, he fingered the gold buckle on Zonta’s cloak. No sooner had he suggested the trade than he saw a lascivious gleam in the other man’s eyes. The bulky Venetian picked at the scab on his head in a pregnant, bartering pause. Gui felt his choler rise at the other man’s greed.

  ‘New shipments are over now until March.’ The dealer raised his hands in mock regret.

  Gui frowned. ‘One of my colleagues took tax on a slave shipment this morning at the docks.’

  ‘Nubians they were,’ said the Venetian.

  ‘Mainly,’ replied Gui.

  Shouts echoed through the vaulted porticos of the courtyard, metal ground against stone as the warehouse shutters were drawn up. The clerk studiously ignored the din but Gui noted a tension that crept into his countenance. The muscle man moved a pace to one side, blocking Gui’s view - and his exit - through the half open door. Gui dug in against his instinct to flee and squared himself to face the Venetians.

  ‘His excellency Al Kamil requires these gifts at the end of the week along with the tariffs from the wine and he will be very disappointed not to recieve them.’

  His saliva tasted like metal as he marched directly at the man in his path who checked him with a glancing blow to his shoulder but let him pass. Keeping a steady stride, Gui weaved through the jostle of newly arrived merchandise now being unloaded in the courtyard.

  From one of the covered wagons he caught the sound of a child’s voice. He span round to face the sound, only to find himself looking into the long muzzle and buck teeth of a face that he recognised but couldn’t place. They played a brief game of dodge. Gui slid past. He had reached the entrance gates when it came to him: the man was one of the men who had tried to stop him leaving the tavern in Messina with Zonta. He could feel eyes at his back. Don’t look round, he told himself, but it was too late.

  ‘Oi! You!’ The shout went up. One hand secured at his waist where the documents were stuffed, Gui broke into a run.

  Up ahead he saw the brass and copperware shops, their frontage a jumble of cooking pots, jugs, lanterns. Although his knife was at his waistband it felt uncomfortably distant from his fingers as he chased along the funnelled passageways. The rhythm of his step metered against the call of the Adhan, the streets flew by. Like a spider’s web, they all drew Gui back to the same centre point. Knowing this haphazard path might land him back at the Fondaco dei Veneziani, he cast around for a place to hide.

  The last bronzed rays of sun were shearing off the buildings, and they picked out a shop sign, hanging just above him; the seven spheres of the heavens revolving around the ecliptic. Beneath the orbs, a line of spindly calligraphy advertised, Gui presumed, the services of an astronomer. The patter of approaching footfall echoed through the meander of passageways. He ducked inside.

  Inside the closet of a room, columns of parchments sprouted up like the foundations of some building as yet unmade, and fine particles of dust hovered in the dying light.

  ‘May I help?’ came the disembodied voice.

  Gui pivoted, looking for its owner. By the light of the only window, hidden behind a lectern, sat an old man.

  ‘Ibn Ibrahim.’

  The astrologer had a fierce intelligence to his face. Thick, white hair swept off a high forehead that lent emphasis to the sharp nose, and small, penetrating eyes that time had not yet clouded over.

  ‘You are seeking someone.’ He spoke in deep, considered tones, his French as precise as any Parisian scholar’s.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘A man’s thoughts carry a weight, as do the yearnings of his heart. These things carry life force and they are as readable as the written word.’

  Ibn Ibrahim looked down at the papyrus spread across his writing bureau, symbols on it.

  ‘I am correct?’

  ‘My son.’ Gui fingered at his waist for the girdle he no longer wore.

  ‘You want to ask me to consult the stars but you are afraid.’ Feather poised above the sheet, the astronomer waited. A bead of ink dropped and flowered on the parchment.

  ‘My Church says prophecy is heresy,’ Gui replied.

  The astrologer massaged his lips together, as though he were preparing a sermon, and said sternly, ‘This is a Greek science. Older even. Mesopotamian.’

  ‘There are seven planets in our Heavens. ‘At the hour of our birth, or the birth of any event or question, these planets lie in certain aspect. This tells us whether the enterprise be ill fated or at least how hard won must be the querent’s victory.’

  Gui’s hand hesitsted at his brow. Once asked, the answer to his question would come – for good or ill.

  ‘And mine? Will I find my boy?’

  There was no sound but for the scratch of the quill as the astronomer consulted his grid of the Heavens, an eye glass pinched on his nose. Gui coughed to relieve the constriction in his heart. He could feel his need to know filling the room, announcing his desperation.

  ‘Do you see anything? How does he fare ?’

  ‘What I see.’ The man laid down his eye glass, ‘is that you will find that which you seek.’

  The pressure drained from Gui’s chest and his throat filled with an exclamation of relief.

  ‘When will we be reunited? Is he harmed?’ The questions spilled out. Ibn Ibrahim held up his palm.

  ‘My work is not prophecy. But I can say that your journey to find him is perilous. There are obstacles that must not be taken lightly. Your son has come to no physical harm. The child is fortunate. It is in his nature to act without calculation. Regardless, he is fortunate and fortune will come to him.’

  It felt foolish to smile at such fanciful visions, yet even as he knew the old man was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, Gui could not help but grin.

  ‘And his mother? Is there anything in the Heavens?’

  The old man pulled at the corner of his mouth with his fingers, then after a lengthy pause, said, ‘She will once again hold her son in her arms.’

  When Gui stepped out it was twilight. The pole star was bright above his head. Etienne would be able to see the same star with fine skies. So would Agnes. Perhaps the stars really did link men to their fate. Surely a man of science like Ibn Ibrahim could not dedicate his life to something he knew to be trickery. Had he really been told only that which he wanted to hear? That Etienne was safe. Fortune would come to him. Agnes would hold him again. It was something Gui needed to believe in, or rather the alternative was something he could not countenance.

  The blow came over his right shoulder and it knocked him to the floor. He struck out at his assailant, but the other man had the advantage of surprise and skipped out of the way. Blood running from his nose, Gui drew his knees up to his chest to fend off a kick to his ribs. In the dim light that remained of the day, he saw the man draw a dagger. He fumbled for his own.

  Vision blurring like a drunk, Gui made to stand but the other man caught him in the face with his boot. Gui clu
tched his hand to the pain. The man picked him up by his tunic. Is this it? Confusion rang in his ears. Have I really come all this way to die like this? He cursed himself for exposing his quest to strangers as his assailant’s blade inched towards his eyes. The dull thud of a blow sounded in the dark. The man groaned and fell, a dead weight on top of Gui. Someone grabbed Gui’s ankles and began to drag him across the street.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘Shall I come down there with you?’ The ruddy face of Gaston appeared in the orange glow of the torchlight. Earlier she had tried to stop him from accompanying her, but once he understood she was intent upon returning to the chapel, he bucked her insistence. Now, as she crept over the soft crumbling earth, she was glad of his presence – an earthly companion in this Devil’s realm.

  ‘No. Stay there and keep a look out,’ she called, her voice a damp echo in the catacomb.

  Her stomach tightened as she approached the bodies. It would not be so awful if all that remained of them were bones – clean, anonymous bones. But tatters of skin were stretched like drying animal hide over ribs, jaws, forearms. Colourless clumps of hair sprouted doll-like from their skulls; a whisper of their living form. They had been people.

  ‘Courage, Agnes,’ she reproached herself. ‘If not you, then who?’

  On one side a number of bodies lay tangled in abiding embrace - the Saracens of her father’s note. How did he know? They must have been fully clothed in their skin when he saw them. In front of her, afforded the small distinction of solitude, lay Margueritte de Coucy, hands folded neatly on her lap in ghostly repose. Agnes scraped at the floor with her shoe, looking for a clue, but nothing sparked in the torchlight. She would have to get down on her hands and knees before the evil of Amaury de Maintenon one more time.

  ‘You monster,’ she whispered, trying to weave the hook of hatred through the eye of her task as the rich, fertile soil oozed through her fingers.