Rebels of Babylon

by Parry, Owen

  The old man nodded, shifting his humped back. His entire form turned round at once, as if it lacked an adequate number of joints. Trailing a scent of personal untidiness, he made the slightest gesture with his fingers, bidding us follow.

  “The front room’s only for Yankees,” Mr. Barnaby explained, “or for them what ’asn’t got the sense to know what they wants exactly, but who ’opes to make a great display back ’ome.”

  Watching the old fellow scuttle along, I thought, unreasonably, of my darling wife. Who is beautiful, and whose spine has but the faintest hint of a curve.

  Behind an innocent-looking door that might have led to a broom closet, a darkened hall awaited. I had the queerest sense of traveling underground, of penetrating deep into a cave. Although we were but a room away from the courtyard, the temperature seemed to fall with every step.

  The old fellow struck a lucifer match. I could not see the lamp he lit with his person interposed, but the flame rose to reveal not gilt but gold. And silver. Educated by the loot of India, my eye told me twas solid goods, not plate. Extravagant as Babylon, fancy services glittered on shelves and counters, their stillness nursing stories of fallen families, of wastrel sons and ill-judged matrimonials.

  “Voilà,” the old fellow declared, summoning me from bedazzlement. “In the corner. The finest selection for Monsieur le Major?”

  Two cylinders wide as the muzzles of old Seekh guns offered up a fine selection of sticks. I had not seen such a grand display in the second-best shop in all of Philadelphia.

  Yet, I was disappointed soon enough. His wares included more than a dozen sword-canes. Each was handsome and several had been worked to the level of jewelry. But when I drew the blades, not one had proper balance or trustworthy steel. That is the thing, see. Soldiering teaches you quickly that not all weapons are equally made. It is not enough to be armed. A fellow must be well armed to survive. The pretty canes he offered me were meant to make a gentleman feel secure as he strolled the streets. But they had not been forged for a fight.

  Studying my frustration, the shopkeeper said, “Ah, Monsieur le Major … I see you are a fighting man.” His eyes shifted to the scar on my swollen cheek, left by a blade in Scotland. “You wish a weapon that fights as well as you do. A partner, let us say.”

  The way the fellow looked at me would have given a statue the shivers. I am not certain any other man has ever looked into my face so intently. Unless it was our regimental colonel, after India broke my will.

  I tried to think of a gentle way to tell him his wares were inadequate. With my jaw rebelling. “It is only … these are …”

  “They are only for the decoration,” he said helpfully. “For the display, the pomp. The vanity. Of course! But you do not care about the display, I think?”

  “A good blade,” I told him, struggling to be understood. “I need one with a fighting blade.”

  He held up his forefinger, telling me to be patient a trifle longer. And he shuffled over to a battered chest, an item as poorly suited to the room as I felt myself to be. After unlocking its highest drawer, the old man fell into a stillness. As if unwilling to open it, after all. He took on a most peculiar air of intimacy, almost of sorrow.

  Gesturing for me to approach, he seemed to have forgotten Mr. Barnaby.

  “I would call this … a private collection,” the proprietor said, beckoning me closer still. “Or perhaps I should say, ‘only for the finest of connoisseurs, for the gentilhomme with the unusual need …’”

  He opened the drawer slowly, half an inch at a time, as if he feared its contents lived and longed to escape their prison.

  It would not be the least exaggeration to say that I was stunned. Three sword-canes slept upon a bed of velvet. Each was beautiful—if we may claim beauty for such implements—yet each was as different one from the other as the three Graces themselves. Those girls the Greeks went on about, I mean, the ones who scampered about in their linens, pretending they were goddesses.

  But beauty was not the thing of it. Not at all. I was no young Paris torn between choices. My selection had been made for me, as soon as the drawer opened. I did not even need to try the weapon.

  Truth be told, the other two canes were more finely worked than the one that held my eye. One was sleeker, another weightier. A man impartial might not have favored my choice. But there was no doubt in my mind.

  So enchanted I was that my discomfort fled, as if warned off by the power of the blade. I gasped when I saw it.

  The thing of it was this: Before me lay the perfect twin of the weapon given to me by the Earl of Thretford, a man who meant me good and ill at once. I left that blade in the bowels of a leprous witch. Fire had consumed it, along with the horrid shack in which I slew her.

  But that is another tale.

  “How much for that one?” My voice was impatient, which makes for unsound business.

  “But you must try it, monsieur!” the old fellow said. “You must feel it, give it the test!”

  I fit my palm to the sword-cane’s hilt. Even before I unleashed the blade, the familiar weight made me ask again, “How much?”

  The old man said, “But I have never fixed the price of that one, you see. Only the rarest connoisseur would have an interest. Only the most remarkable man …”

  I did not like the sound of that at all. Of course, I had been too eager, which was foolish. Now he wished to raise the price as high as he possibly could.

  I was about to tell the old fellow that I wished to know his price and no more dithering, when he laid the tips of his fingers upon my forearm.

  The skin on the back of his hand was so thin you seemed to see not only bones but marrow.

  “You must try the blade … to understand …”

  “I have tried it,” I told him. “I had one exactly like it, see. I lost it in a fuss.”

  His fingers slipped around my wrist, gripping me with all his remaining strength.

  “You must be mistaken,” he said. His eyes cut into me.

  “No. I am certain of it. Look you. I do not pretend to know many things, but I know my weapons. It is not only the look, but the feel of the thing. Three months ago, I possessed a blade identical to this one.”

  “But that is not possible!” he declared. He seemed uncertain whether to be angry with me or astonished. And his voice held the slightest undertone of fear. “That is … it is so unlikely I must think it impossible. There were only five … only five were made so. Two are in royal collections, a third is said to have found its way to Persia … I say, ‘found its way,’ monsieur, because the blades choose who may carry them for a time. But do you know the story … the terrible story? I think you do not …”

  Now, I had not imagined the Earl of Thretford’s gift as anything special, beyond its obvious handsomeness. And as a fellow sensible of his purse, I had reason to be wary of any proprietor who spoke of royal collections and Persian wonders.

  The old man inched closer, until I seemed to catch a whiff of mortality. “But you say that one is lost? One of the blades has been lost?”

  “Destroyed,” I said, struggling to pronounce my words correctly. “It was a nasty business.”

  Seen close, the skin on his face was so thin I seemed to see thoughts at work. I laid the weapon back down on its bed. Reluctantly. I did not wish him to think me quite so anxious as I had let myself appear.

  “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 arri
val 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.”