Through Darkest Europe

by Harry Turtledove

  Dawud’s chuckle was sour. “I have a picture of an Aquinist Corrector with a pile of trashy espionage romances translated from the Arabic, or maybe even in the original, picking out the bits that ought to work.”

  “It could be true—you never know,” Khalid said.

  “It could be, yes,” Major Badoglio said. “A better bet, though, is that some spies are Aquinists, too, and pass on what they know.”

  That struck Khalid as much too likely. Spear-carriers for the Aquinists needed only fanaticism. The people who ran the movement might be misguided, but they were a long way from dumb. They wouldn’t have been so dangerous otherwise. An astringent intelligence like Corrector Pacelli’s would have risen to the top in whatever line the man chose.

  Badoglio found a question of his own, perhaps in the line of duty, perhaps not: “Is your lady friend glad to see you back in one piece”

  “She is,” Khalid replied. “She hadn’t heard we were supposed to be dead, though, so that was all news to her. The ambassador told me he was going to call her, but he hadn’t got around to it when we showed up at his door. He hadn’t had the heart, he said. That once, putting things off worked out better.”

  “I know she met Salgari,” Major Badoglio said. “Did she say anything about suspecting him?”

  “Not a word,” Khalid said. “She was as surprised as we were.”

  “He didn’t have a sign on his back that said I’M REALLY ON THE OTHER SIDE,” Dawud said. “The sign is what gives most spies away.”

  “Let me make a note of that.” Badoglio did pretend to write it down. Khalid and Dawud both laughed for real. Someone from the other side of the Mediterranean might have made that comeback—Dawud might have done it himself. To a large degree, people were people regardless of where they came from or which religion they professed.

  To a large degree, but not altogether. People who insisted on ramming their faith down everyone’s throat took advantage of the toleration they got from those to whom religion was only a small thing. Tolerance needed to run both ways. When it didn’t … I wouldn’t be in Italy if tolerance ran both ways, Khalid thought.

  “What did the Pope say when he found out the Aquinists might be infiltrating his guards?” he asked.

  “He said it sounded like a logical thing for men with those beliefs to do,” Major Badoglio answered.

  “I should be so cool at news like that,” Dawud said.

  “He’s not an excitable man. Excitable men don’t last when they carry Saint Peter’s keys,” Badoglio said. “Then there was the one cardinal—I think it was about three hundred years ago—who died of joy when he found out he’d been elected.”

  “Does he count as a Pope?” Khalid asked, intrigued in spite of himself.

  “Officially, yes. The Holy Spirit pointed to him.”

  “If you say so.” The answer seemed arbitrary to Khalid. But a no from the Italian would have seemed arbitrary, too. Khalid had enough trouble believing in and following the tenets of the faith he’d been born into. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fasted by day all the way through Ramadan. He sometimes wished he were more pious, but it didn’t seem to be in him. So penetrating the mysteries of this different religion felt like too much work.

  Dawud said, “Joy? That’s the way I’d like to go, preferably at the age of a hundred and three.”

  “You could do worse,” Major Badoglio said. “Most of us will.”

  “Yes, that’s so.” The Jew sobered. Like Khalid, he was bound to be remembering that Badoglio’s father had just had his brush with whatever lay on the far side of this world. And he was bound to be remembering the Maghribis’ own brush with the unknowable. If those Italians hadn’t had a utility vehicle they couldn’t fix, Captain Salgari might be commiserating with Badoglio right this minute about what fine fellows the Muslim and the Jew had been.

  They said their good-byes. Major Badoglio’s father would stay in the knowable world a while longer. So would they.

  * * *

  “This is a different room,” Annarita said when Khalid opened the door and waved her in. “The same floor, but a different room.”

  “That’s right. After Dawud moved out, the garbanzo-counters at the embassy finally put me in a smaller one myself. They didn’t see any reason for one man to rattle around all by himself in an expensive two-person suite.” Khalid took out a notebook and scribbled in it: Chances are this one is bugged, too. He tore out the page and handed it to his lady friend.

  She nodded, crumpled up the note, and walked into the bathroom. A flush said it was gone for good. When she came out, she turned on the television. The noise it made might give snoops trouble.

  A chorus of women was singing the praises of a particular brand of pasta. The pasta box danced in time to the music with animated arms and legs. Annarita made a face. “Your advertisements can’t be this stupid,” she said.

  “That’s what you think,” Khalid answered. “They all go for the lowest common denominator, and you can’t get much lower than that.”

  “They can’t get much lower than that.” Annarita pointed to the gyrating box. “I’ll never touch that brand again.”

  “You can think for yourself. You aren’t the target audience,” Khalid said.

  “My cat wouldn’t be the target audience for that!” she said.

  He nodded. “Of course not. What do cats care about noodles?”

  She poked him in the ribs. He took off his shoes and lay down on the bed. Annarita lay down beside him. His arm slid around her. She moved closer. Maybe after a while they’d turn off the television and do something else. Or maybe they’d leave it on while they did something else. When you figured you had people listening to you, confusing them was part of the game.

  Another commercial came on, this one from a firm that took tourists to Jerusalem. That kind of pilgrimage wasn’t required of Christians the way the hajj to Mecca was for Muslims, but it was still popular. “Our excellent security arrangements will make sure your journey stays perfectly safe!” the announcer said.

  “No Aquinists.” Khalid translated from advertiserspeak to ordinary language. “None they know about, anyhow.” There had been incidents in what Christians and Jews called the Holy Land. Some fanatics took the idea of Crusading literally. Most of those were dead, along with an unfortunately large number of locals. The rest wouldn’t see the outside of a prison cell for a long time, if they ever did.

  After one more ad—this one for a cold medicine that claimed to cure better than holy water—the news came on at last. Khalid wondered if Captain Salgari’s treachery would lead it. But the well-groomed man reading his well-groomed script said not a word about that. Grand Duke Lorenzo wanted to keep the Aquinists guessing, then.

  What the news showed did nothing to reassure Khalid. Riots and insurrection had broken out in the European quarters of major cities throughout the Muslim world. The camera showed police and troops battling Europeans in a town that looked familiar to him.

  Sure enough, the newsreader said, “This footage is from Algiers, in the Maghrib. But it could come from Rabat or Tunis or Alexandria or Cairo or Damascus or Baghdad or Istanbul. It could even come from Manahatta or Seattle or Tenochtitlan in the Sunset Lands.”

  “This is terrible!” Annarita exclaimed as a gasoline bomb sent a horse with wheels up in flames. Khalid couldn’t have put it better himself.

  When the picture cut back to the newsman, a scholarly-looking older fellow was sitting beside him in the studio. “With me is Professor Gianfranco Albertazzi, an expert on the Aquinist movement and international relations. Professor Albertazzi has a position at the Ducal University. Welcome, Professor.”

  “Thank you.” Even in responding to a greeting, Albertazzi sounded like a man who chose his words with care.

  “How likely do you think it is that all these uprising should have begun at the same time?” the newsman asked.

  “That depends on how you define ‘likely,’” the professor said—
yes, he was cautious, all right. “If you mean, is it a coincidence that they all erupted together, I would find that highly unlikely. If you mean, was there planning to make them all start simultaneously, that seems much more probable.”

  “Planning by the Aquinists, you’re saying.” The newsreader didn’t make that a question.

  Professor Albertazzi’s nod was measured, too. “Yes. In foreign lands as in our own, they seek to disrupt however they can. Chaos is a means to an end for them. It is almost an end in itself. They care very little about what happens to the people they lure away from good order.”

  That was how Khalid saw the Aquinists. He found it interesting that a European—presumably, a Catholic Christian—academic saw them the same way. Of course, with a different view Albertazzi wouldn’t have found himself on the Grand Duke’s television station.

  “Europe’s international reputation, and Italy’s in particular, can only suffer because of this, wouldn’t you say?” the newsman asked.

  “Certainly.” Albertazzi gave another measured nod. “The wider world will only see us as bloodthirsty barbarians. These riots live down to the stereotypes foreigners already hold about us.”

  “Thank you, Professor.” The newsreader looked straight into the camera. “We’ll be right back with more news, and with the weather and sports, after these important announcements.”

  That meant the station returned to huckstering. Capitalism in Italy was rawer and less sophisticated than in places where it had held sway longer. Some of these advertisements were much worse than the prancing pasta box, and would have made people in the Maghrib laugh themselves silly.

  Khalid didn’t want to pay attention to them anyway. Turning to Annarita, he said, “The Aquinists have a longer reach than I thought they did.”

  “They have a longer reach than anyone thought they did,” she answered. “That someone in a German archbishopric, say, could touch off riots in Baghdad and Seattle at the same time—” She broke off, shaking her head.

  “I wonder how long they’ve been putting this together,” Khalid muttered, more than half to himself. The Aquinists might—did—hate modern science and technology for transforming the world and man’s perspective of it. That didn’t keep them from using technology’s products when they came in handy. Plainly, the rioters had more and more potent weapons than they would have if they hadn’t been stockpiling them. Just as plainly, modern communications made sure all the insurrections began together.

  “All they want to do is tear things down,” Annarita said. “Nothing else matters to them.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. It wasn’t a kiss of passion: more a kiss of gratitude. “You really ought to come back to the Maghrib with me,” he said. “You’re wasted here.”

  “Come back with you as what? Your concubine? No, thank you.” She didn’t seem angry, only sad and matter-of-fact. “Besides, how long will it be before Europeans are welcome there again?”

  “Sooner than you think,” Khalid answered. “We need workers. There wouldn’t be so many Europeans there now if we didn’t. As for the other…” He paused. That was the important one, as he understood. “You could marry me, you know.”

  Her eyes widened. “Do you mean that? I’m not just someone to keep you happy while you’re stuck in this barbarous country?”

  “Yes, I mean it. You’re about the least barbarous person I ever met,” he said. “In case I never mentioned it, I was married once before. It didn’t work, but I think I know—I hope I know—some things not to do now. I’ve grown up a good deal since then.”

  “We don’t … break up marriages so casually here,” she said slowly. “‘Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ That’s the rule we live by.”

  “Different customs. I know. I think our way is better. It saves people from being stuck in unhappy marriages.”

  “And it means they walk away at any excuse or none,” Annarita retorted. “I’m not going to stop believing what I believe even if I love you.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to. You wouldn’t be you otherwise. I won’t try to convert you, and I don’t expect you to try to convert me. We can get along the way we are.” Khalid hoped living in a secular constitutional monarchy like the Maghrib would eventually make her take a more relaxed view of her faith. He didn’t know that would happen with her, but he had seen the like with other bright, well-educated Christians. He kissed her again, this time in a different way. “And I do love you, you know.”

  “You must. Either that or you’ve gone crazy.” But she kissed him back.

  The commercials ended. The weather report came on. The sports followed. Neither Khalid nor Annarita paid any attention to them.

  * * *

  Black masks hid the faces of the soldiers in the narrow, high-walled courtyard. They carried old-fashioned, bolt-action rifles. One of them worked the bolt to make sure it functioned smoothly. A nod said the mechanism satisfied him.

  Major Badoglio nodded to Khalid and Dawud. The officer from the Ministry of Information seemed pleased with himself. He sounded pleased, too: “I’m very glad I could arrange for you to be here this morning.”

  “Thank you for taking the trouble.” Khalid could have done without Badoglio’s diligence. He knew what was going to happen. He understood that it or something like it was necessary. He didn’t want to watch it, but he knew declining would have insulted the Italian who’d got permission for him to come.

  Dawud said nothing at all. There were occasional advantages to being a junior investigator.

  Bugles blared a fanfare. A man with iron lungs shouted, “His Supreme Highness, the Grand Duke Lorenzo!”

  Everyone stiffened to attention as the Grand Duke and his bodyguards walked into the courtyard. “As you were, friends,” Lorenzo said. The men relaxed. Lorenzo came over to Major Badoglio and Khalid and Dawud. “He’s getting what he deserves, eh?” he said. To the Maghribis, he added, “Getting what he would have given you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Khalid nodded. Italians took revenge seriously, the way people in the Maghrib had back in the days before the world changed. This whole macabre ceremony seemed a tunnel through time to a bygone age.

  A shout rose: “Bring in the prisoner!”

  A door opened: not the one through which the Maghribis and Major Badoglio or the Grand Duke and his bodyguards had entered. In came Captain Salgari, escorted by three guards who also wore black masks. Salgari’s hands were tied behind his back. He wore a uniform from which every insigne and decoration had been stripped.

  The guards led him to a pole at one end of the courtyard. One of them tied his feet to the base of the pole. Another fixed the rope biding his hands to it. The third offered him a blindfold. He shook his head. The guard shrugged and put the strip of cloth back in his pocket.

  “You have seen a priest and made your final confession?” the guard asked, plainly for the record.

  “I have.” Captain Salgari’s voice wobbled, but he managed a nod.

  Again for the record, the guard said, “Have you any last words? Be brief.”

  “I am a Christian man,” Salgari said. “I did what a Christian man should do. I will go to heaven when I die, and all of you will burn in hell.”

  Lorenzo said, “You were a traitor to your country. You were a traitor to your sovereign, to me.” He jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “You get what you deserve in this world, and you’ll get what you deserve in the next one, too.” He nodded to the squad of riflemen. “Carry out the sentence!”

  “Load your weapons!” ordered the lieutenant in charge of the squad.

  As the soldiers each chambered a round, Major Badoglio spoke in a low voice: “One man has a blank cartridge in his piece, so each can hope he did not fire a killing round.”

  Their faith is full of rituals. So is the way they execute a man, Khalid thought. On his side of the Mediterranean, executions were very rare, though treason could cause on
e there as well. In the Maghrib, they were handled quickly and quietly, with everyone doing his best to pretend nothing was happening. Not here. Here they turned death into a ceremony.

  “Ready!” the lieutenant called. The men brought the rifles to their shoulders. “Aim!” he said, and the barrels all swung toward Captain Salgari’s chest.

  At the same time as the lieutenant ordered “Fire!”, Salgari cried “God wills it!” A split second later, the rifles thundered as one. Salgari slumped against the post.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Khalid saw that Lorenzo’s bodyguards had unobtrusively slid between the firing squad and the Grand Duke. They took no chances on one of the black-masked soldiers’ being a secret Aquinist. The precaution went for nothing, but they didn’t know ahead of time that it would.

  The lieutenant in charge of the firing squad drew his pistol and walked around behind Salgari. Though red splashed the wall there, he checked Salgari’s pulse. If he had to finish the traitor, he would.

  He straightened and slid the pistol into its holster. “He is dead. It is over,” he said formally, and then, “Squad—dismissed!”

  His men saluted him, shouldered their rifles, and marched out by the door Captain Salgari had used to come in. The lieutenant and the guards who’d tied Salgari to the post followed.

  Lorenzo scowled at the dead man. “I’d like to chuck that carrion in the Tiber, but his Holiness would have something sharp to say if I did. I hate to waste Italian dirt on him, though.”

  “What he did when he was alive won’t matter to the worms, sir,” Dawud said.

  “Ha! Well, you’re right about that.” The Grand Duke was still scowling, though. “I wish he’d known how the fanatics got the bomb through to my father. That would have given me a little peace of mind.”

  Even in the Muslim world, sultans and wazirs had bodyguards to keep them safe from the occasional maniac. Here in Europe, the maniacs weren’t so occasional. If they’d managed to murder your father, of course you would worry your turn was liable to come next.