The Book of Seven Hands: A Foreworld SideQuest (The Foreworld Saga)

by Anderson, Barth

  César whispered in the solemnity of the confessional, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  “It has been several days since your last confession, my son.”

  “I know, I know, Father.”

  “Now that we are in Vacanana, I expect information from you every morning, César, until your penance is complete. Now confess to me.”

  César wiped a gloved hand over his long black mustache and beard, a gesture of regret, anxiety. “I need to confess that the Great Basilio and Alejo are not as dead as I confessed a week ago.”

  The old archbishop’s voice quavered with the stroke he suffered last spring. “You confessed to me that you saw their burned bodies in the ruins of the inn. The Sow’s Purse. Was that a lie, my son?”

  “No, I thought I heard them inside their room when I locked it and set the fire. I was mistaken, but I did not lie to you. I swear, Father.”

  “Well, then. Who did you kill, César?”

  “Two of the English, Archbishop.”

  “Ah. The spies of Henry the Eighth? What a fortuitous bit of haplessness that was on your part.”

  “I recovered their swords from the buried wreckage of the Sow’s Purse and finally identified them. That’s why I missed confession yesterday. I believe the English swordsmen were hiding in the room, lying in wait to kill someone.”

  “Basilio and the other?”

  “If so, I don’t understand why. They’ve never had any dealing with the English that I know.”

  “Good riddance to the English, but those innocent men were not part of your penance. Your sins of murder are mounting, César.”

  Here in the chapel, César’s violent anger was far away. Here the knight was a small child, afraid of facing Satan in the dark, afraid of facing the punishment of perdition to which the priest could damn him. “Archbishop, I beg of you; please, absolve me of this sin. You must help purify my—”

  “Do you know the whereabouts of the Great Basilio? And the other one you used to fight? The jumping one?”

  “Alejo.” César coughed, suppressing his fury into a posture of concentration and penitence, with one hard fist pressed against his brow. “His name is Alejo Lope El Toreador.” Then he again ran the gloved hand over his perfectly groomed mustache and beard. “And they are in Vacanana, I tell you. I believe either a very wealthy or very poor house has hidden them, and knowing Basilio’s taste for—”

  “First you said you were going to kill them in Don Manuel’s old farmhouse. You didn’t manage that, though you had guns and a squad of knights. Then you said you killed them in the fire. Where are you looking for them?”

  “I have a lead from a nun who was part of the pilgrimage. I also have informants at the blacksmith, in case they attempt to rearm, and the chapel-field market, in case they attempt to purchase vegetables. I will find them.”

  “How do you say that with any confidence, César?

  “Because several night watchmen have gone missing, and others tell tales of midnight swordfights as seen in Spain’s larger cities.”

  “Now that is compelling.”

  “Also, I must confess,” the haggard knight said, “that by eavesdropping I learned some very important news, Father.”

  “Eavesdropping? That too is a sin.”

  “This I know.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I sinned during a thief’s de-handing in Lord Casal’s courtyard. Just this morning. One of the two I overheard turned out to be the priest named Zacarías who told us about Basilio.”

  “Aha. So Zacarías has come to Vacanana looking for the Book of the Seven Hands himself. And the other?”

  “The other was Doña Viray.”

  César could hear the archbishop suck in his breath and hold it. The knight folded his gloved hands smugly, enjoying the archbishop’s silence. He listened for a moment but could hear nothing from the other side of the confessional booth.

  “Archbishop? Did you hear? Are you awake, Archbishop?”

  “It’s my drool cup. One moment, I need to empty it. Your news, it was astonishing.”

  “I understand, believe me.”

  “The cup is reattached. San Jose preserve us. Doña Viray. The Doña Viray? Did she recognize you?”

  “It’s been so many years since we served the Marqués of Málaga together. She would not recognize me,” he said.

  “This turn of events is horrifying. Is she in league with Zacarías to find the don’s book?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But they may be the least of our worries. We are in an enormous race to find Alejo and Basilio.”

  “A race? A race against whom?”

  “Against half of Europe. Don Manuel’s parade of enemies is never-ending, and they are all marching to Vacanana from far and wide. Two nights ago, I personally intercepted a courier with a letter written in Italian.”

  “What?”

  “There are Italian army officers coming to Vacanana, all the way from Bologna, searching for Don Manuel.”

  “Italians? Here? Oh, the drooling is now bad.”

  “Yes, Archbishop.”

  “One moment. All right, dry as toast. What did the letter say?”

  “I had it translated. It said, ‘The little falcon will alight in trees of evergreen.’”

  “A little falcon? It must be military code. I suppose you cannot tell me what that means, either, eh?”

  “No, Archbishop. I never fought in the Italian Wars.”

  “This is not going well. I cannot absolve you of any of your sins, you know, César.”

  The anger inside the haggard knight’s heart began to flame, devouring his skin, his eyes. “Not even the ones I perform in your service?”

  “I cannot promise that any of your sins will be absolved by God if you fail to bring Basilio to me for examination.”

  Sweat trickled in the roots of Don César’s long black hair. “‘Bring’ him to you?” Unprecedented. Despicable. How could his childhood priest ask César to do this? It was utter damnation if the archbishop also refused to absolve him. “Bring the Great Basilio to you? How?”

  “Unharmed. Healthy. To be clear, not dead, César.”

  “You said in Madrid that you wanted me to kill him.”

  “Don’t be dense. That was before Zacarías sent us the birth records from León. Spain in its sinful corruption adores Basilio, reveres him as some sort of hero. Well, I plan to destroy him with divine truth in an inquisition. So you must capture him. Alive.”

  “I don’t think I can do it. He’ll kill me. You’re sending me to hell, Archbishop,” César said. “I have dwelt under threat of God’s eternal punishment, thanks to what you make me do in your service.”

  “I don’t ‘make’ you do anything.”

  “But you do make the penance.”

  “Yes, I do. And there is only one path to your penance that will—ay. More drooling.”

  “Father? Archbishop? Please, before I face certain death against the Great Basilio, will you take at least one sin from my heavy load? Just one?”

  “Oh, good God, are you going to cry, little Cesitar?”

  “Absolve me of stealing the courier’s letter! Absolve me of the eavesdropping! Anything!”

  “Not until you show me you are worthy,” the archbishop said, opening the door on his side of the confessional booth. “Now go. Capture the Great Basilio for me, and you will be saved.”

  Beaten, virtuous, misunderstood, stricken, and yet fully resolved to act in his service for God as always, the haggard knight picked up his hat. Deep shadows of the chapel trailed behind him as he strode through the front doors. He would do his duty to his archbishop, of course, but César knew he would be dumped into the flames of hell forever for it. Doomed was the haggard knight, his red spurs tapping out the opening stanza to his sad requiem, as he walked back into the smothering heat of the hateful, sinning world. A gitano boy pissed into the acrid-smelling filth collecting in the gutter of the town’s main causeway
. Another watched him, picking at damp red sores in the corners of his eyes. A tall negrafricana slave-woman carrying a woven market basket stepped around the boys, lifting the hem of her white skirts to keep them from being soiled in the causeway. Don César heaved a great sigh. Even the sad last song of a fallen knight’s jangling spurs would have to be soiled, it seemed, by a detestable world rank with filth and foreigners.

  César paused to make way for the slave-woman; he assumed she was crossing his path before the chapel, making for the loud, bustling open air nearby. But as he paused, so did she.

  “Pardon me, good caballero, but are you the Red Spur called Don César?” she said in splendid Castilian, eyes on the ground.

  “That is my sad fate, yes.”

  “This slave understands that you came to my master, Don Porfirio, searching for two men.”

  “You are owned by the respected Don Porfirio?”

  “That is this one’s sad fate,” she whispered, her eyes glancing up to his, then down to the grimy causeway again. “She is a slave to his ignobility and cowardice.”

  “What are you saying, girl?”

  “The men you seek,” she whispered, “are guests in the house of Don Porfirio.”

  “Are you certain? Their names, girl? Tell me their names,” Don César whispered urgently.

  “Alejo,” she said, almost regretfully. She took a breath as if for courage. “And the monster named Basilio.”

  Gracias. He closed his eyes and prayed to the Savior and began to weep, laying a hand upon the slave-woman’s shoulder. If thy will be done, I am on my way to you, señor.

  Basilio sat on the stone bench surrounding the common room’s hearth and watched as Alejo gave a stiff-armed punching thrust, parried and thrust again—one of Don Manuel’s la destreza techniques that they had found in the Book of the Seven Hands.

  Basilio unbuckled his pack. He’d slept up on the mountainside last night and came back into Vacanana dressed as an old herb-woman, his most foolproof disguise.

  “Alejo’s wounds are healing perfectly.” Paracelsus beamed a big smile at Basilio. “The leg actually bears Alejo’s weight now, you see? My work on his injuries has been miraculous.”

  A fit Alejo would be most welcome. Basilio had been jumped by three thugs with bloodlust in their eyes the night before, and, two nights before that, Don Porfirio had told them that he’d run a boy off for sneaking around the pens where Padrona was stabled. Basilio presumed their escape from Vacanana wasn’t going to be a stroll through the gates.

  “I’ll be ready when you are, Basilio,” Alejo said. He misstepped, wobbled and then wince-smiled as he walked off a painful tinge. “Well, it’s not fully healed, but—”

  Paracelsus sneered, “Now don’t destroy my work, Rojo. Adhere to your twelve-point exercises we learned, and after you’re finished, I shall exalt you with laudanum.”

  Basilio opened his pack, and the scent of its contents wafted through the room and caught Paracelsus’s attention.

  “Apples?” he said excitedly. “I haven’t had an apple since I left for Rhodes last year. May I?”

  “I found them on my trip,” Basilio said. Actually, he’d gotten them from a group of Italian monks camping on a cedar ridge overlooking Vacanana. The monks were impossibly old but quite excited to talk—as most Italians were, in Basilio’s experience. He asked them about off-road routes, and the old monks told him they’d been using a footpath into a valley that curled around Vacanana’s mountain to the south. Then they gave him five apples.

  “What were Italian monks doing on the mountainside?” Alejo asked between head-strikes.

  “Camping, it seemed.”

  “Every day I hear Guillermo and la señora talking about a new host of pilgrims entering Vacanana,” Paracelsus said. Then he bit into the apple.

  Basilio felt like he was trapped in the bottom of the latrine again, with a pile of wood blocking his way. They needed to get out. He cut a slice of apple for himself and said to Paracelsus, “Are you finished with the translation yet, compadre?”

  The sorcerer folded his arms, and his craggy brow wrinkled in irritation. “You asked me that yesterday, you know.”

  “Then it won’t take very long to update me.”

  Paracelsus chuckled. “I worked all night. Yes, I’m close. The work has been intoxicating.” Paracelsus opened his slender white hands, which were so feminine compared with his hard outcropping of a face. “I learned to clean an injury with water,” he said with humility, and Basilio had to look at Paracelsus’s face to see if humor or irony was intended. “It’s hard to explain how valuable the Book of the Seven Hands is. To the art of medicine. To me. Water? Simply cleaning wounds with water?” He peered through narrowed eyes at Alejo’s nimble actions and slowly shook his head. “It humiliates me to see that Man is nothing but a stumbling, dim-witted amnesiac, one capable of forgetting such simple lessons of medicine. Not a potion or a mineral like zincum. And yet, no scholars discussed water in university.”

  Basilio admired Paracelsus, this man who still believed, as children do, in the inherent rightness of the world.

  “Your companion is proof that it works,” Paracelsus said. “He is alive—not just alive, but exercising so quickly after his terrible injuries—because of the practices I learned in the Book of the Seven Hands.”

  Basilio preferred what he could hold with his own hands—a foe’s throat, coins, a woman’s wrist, the hilt of his espada—to lessons from antiquity. But the surprises Paracelsus found in the book were astounding; he could not deny this.

  For the book, as they had learned over the last ten days, was more than just the manual on sword fighting that the don said it was—and more than a treatise on healing with water. It was actually three books, one within the other, each of ancient origin. Written in AD 894 by a Jewish cabalist named Moshe ben Isram in a curious Spanish-Arabic mishmash, the Book of the Seven Hands was actually a translation of another book written in AD 400 or 500 by a man named Oenamaus—a Spanish-Roman trainer of gladiators. Oenamaus’s book, in turn, was a transcription of an even older book, that one Greek. That earliest of the books-within-books (transcribed by a Greek-Hebrew slave named Eryximachus at the behest of a Hippocratic physician) could not be exactly dated. Paracelsus said, however, that the core seven elements discussed by Eryximachus, the eponymous “seven hands”—the handling of a short stabbing sword called a xiphos and another called a kopis; spear-and-shield footwork that followed sephiroth of the Kabala; the proper healing of battle injuries; and mystic mathematics—had to be at least two thousand years old.

  Basilio could see in the crisp intensity of his blood-brother’s movements that all of Alejo’s boyish dreams were coming true. His feet were moving in the same steps as those ancient practitioners of la destreza that Don Manuel had hinted about. The form was two millennia old. Far older than we’d ever imagined! Don Manuel’s school would be rebuilt! When Alejo glanced at Basilio during a pivot in his “Tree of Life” steps, as Paracelsus had called them, every unbridled hope was there in his bejeweled farm-boy eyes.

  Basilio looked down to the unswept floor, ashamed. He toyed with the forged steel charm around his neck, the oval disc that Don Manuel had given him when Basilio agreed to be his student. He looked at it now, under his chin. It was stamped with four letters: OMVI. The don’s perennial dream of a destreza school was so strange and different a plan from his own wants (foe, woman, gold, hilt). Basilio couldn’t feel anything for it except mild, bemused contempt. What did the charm mean? What did the letters mean? The other two knew he felt this way, and it shamed Basilio. Don Manuel and Alejo would stay in one place, perhaps, but Basilio would never be able to, even if he overcame his disinterest for a destreza school. La Inquisición was pursuing him once again. They had new information, perhaps from bitter family in León, and the Archbishop of Barcelona would not stop pursuing Basilio at a school yard fence.

  Alejo and Don Manuel would rebuild the school, and Basilio would finally leave t
he service of his beloved master. That’s how he always knew it would go, and that day was almost upon him.

  A devastated sigh was trapped in his throat. But Basilio refused it. Weeping was for Alejo, not him.

  Looking up, Basilio said to Paracelsus, “I need you to finish the translation, Doctor. Sooner than later. And by sooner, I mean tomorrow.”

  “My original agreement with Don Manuel stipulated that I had a full fortnight,” Paracelsus said. Then he immediately frowned, backtracking. “But everything has changed. You are both in great danger here, I realize.”

  “Tomorrow at noon I will leave Vacanana,” Basilio said, “and take as many rogues and rascals as will give chase at that time. Tomorrow night, under cover of darkness, Alejo, you will leave town with the book and the translation. Tonight, I’m going out to find a pass through the mountains that the monks told me about. I hope we can use it to pass south to the sea road and ride back to Valencia as fast as we can to pick up the scent of Don Manuel.”

  Alejo nodded as he stepped into a thrust, then parried a counterthrust. “And when we’re reunited with him, we three will rebuild the farmhouse on the edges of the Desert of the Palms, just as before.” He sheathed his sword with a loud snap and plopped himself into the blood-caked chair that all agreed was his alone now. He put his heels up on the hearth and pulled a large iron pan of coals under his legs; Paracelsus had advised heat, heat, and more heat while he was healing. Another lesson from the Book of the Seven Hands.