The Mask of Loki

by Roger Zelazny

  "It's as much for a village priest to question the Pope's commands as for a Templar to go against the Master of his Order or the King."

  "They say that Roger is not Grand Master of the Hospital anymore, now that he has flung his key of office in the King's face."

  "Get your facts straight, boy. He threw the key out the window. And no one saw it land, or saw it in the yard after that. So no one can say he did not pick up the key later and put it on again. He is master until the Knights of the Hospital refuse to follow him, or until the Pope unmakes him. And that His Holiness will never do."

  "Why? Because Roger is so good at being master?"

  "Because Rome is so far away. Pope Urban lies dying even as we speak. His successor, who will be Gregory—the eighth of that name, I believe—will not last out the year. And the one to follow will be too busy consolidating the papacy to turn his eyes far overseas. So we in Outremer will be left to settle our affairs in our own way."

  "The Pope is dying!" Leo exclaimed. "And you know who will follow him... Do you have many friends who are cardinals?"

  "Not one."

  "Then how do you know this Gregory will become pope?"

  "When you stare as hard into the future as I have of late, then you find afterward that you know things you never thought you knew. I can tell you, in order, the names of the popes right up to the year of my death. And nine centuries will bring us a lot of popes."

  "My goodness! You are a fey one, Master Thomas."

  "Not fey, Leo, but... What is that?"

  In the distance, where the road met the horizon between two hills, a white dot appeared, trailing a wide plume of dust.

  "A rider, Master."

  The dot quickly resolved into a horseman wearing the headdress and robes of a Bedouin. He moved at a bobbing canter, coming straight at them. Amnet and the Turcopole drew rein and sat still.

  "Raising too much dust for one horse," Amnet observed.

  As soon as the rider saw them, he picked up speed, going to a gallop. The hard-packed, stony dirt of the road transmitted the sound of hooves: they chattered and overlapped, indicating more than one horse.

  Amnet instinctively looked behind him, but the road there was clear.

  At 200 yards, a long bowshot, the rider swerved to the left, and a second rode out of the dust cloud, then a third, fourth, and fifth. Each moved to the side and drove their horses hard, so that they flanked the Knight Templar and his servant. The flankers rode behind them and closed the circle, continuing on their course until all five of the Bedouin were riding in tight curves around the pair.

  With a shrill cry, one of them stopped the orbiting band. Their horses wheeled until their five blunt heads, with five pairs of flaring, puffing black nostrils and the tips of five drawn sabers laid between their ears, faced the two Christians.

  "What do they want, Master Thomas?"

  "I don't know, Leo, but I think we shall go with them."

  * * *

  For a warrior, a strategist and a man of sharp action, the demands of court life were wearying. The parade of sober faces, the stale praises, the restless hands and the grabbing eyes, all dragged upon Saladin's spirit and added to the length of the day.

  This morning he sat as judge, hearing the pleas of one Bedouin against another in the matter of lost lambs and rights to well water. Calculating by the angle of a sunbeam which fell from a narrow gap in the tent cloth, he could see the break for midday prayer was still more than an hour away. Saladin let out a sigh that might have been heard by Mustafa, who waited behind him.

  The next supplicants were a small band of Bedouins who shoved two tattered travelers across the carpets ahead of them. One of the pair, a half-breed by his look, fell on his knees in front of the cushions before Saladin's toes. The other was pure European and probably a Frank. He remained standing, staring down at the Sultan—until one of the Bedouins kicked him expertly at the back of the knee. That dropped the man on all fours, but he never took his eyes off Saladin.

  The clothing of both men was dusty, cut, and travel stained. The Franks tunic might once have been white. The pattern of cuts and the lighter, less dirtied wool on the left breast might have been in the shape of a cross. The cross that had been cut away there might have been red. And it all might mean nothing.

  "What is the complaint?" Saladin asked, putting strength in his voice.

  "O My Lord, these men were found upon Jaffa Road."

  "Yes?"

  "That road is the responsibility of the Haris el-Merma. All who pass there must obtain our permission and pay their duties. These. did not pay."

  "Can you not extract the amount from them?"

  "O My Lord, they have not the price."

  "Not anything?"

  "No money, and not much value in the weapons they carry. One of them carried this..." And the man pulled an old purse of pale leather out from under his robe.

  "Give it here," Saladin commanded.

  The Bedouin surrendered the purse. Inside it was a hard lump, like a stone. The Sultan untied the leather thongs that held its mouth and dumped the contents onto his palm. It looked like a piece of smoky quartz, but smooth as a water-washed pebble. It was heavy and felt warm to his skin—probably retaining the heat of the Bedouin's body. Saladin held it up into the sunbeam that fell from the tent's roof.

  The kneeling Frank drew in a sharp breath and then held it.

  The light passed into the quartz and died, neither shining through nor brightening its nether surface. Something dark, then, inhabited the center of the quartz—a flaw that would rob it of any marginal value such a large piece of crystal might hold.

  Saladin slipped the bauble into its purse and tossed it to the Bedouin.

  "Give it back to him. It will not pay your price."

  "My Lord has spoken."

  "I shall pay the passage for these two."

  "Thank you, My—"

  Saladin cut him off by turning his face to the Frank.

  "You are a Christian?"

  "I am, General." The man's Arabic was as deeply flawed as his stone, and yet it was a wonder to hear a European speak the tongue.

  "And this half-breed is your servant?"

  "My apprentice, sir. Also my friend."

  Saladin shrugged. Who cared where an infidel put his loyalties? "What was your business in Jaffa?"

  "I was sent by my master to extract a promise for some horse... flesh."

  "You do not look like a trader. You might be a knight, by your clothing, except you do not look stupid about the eyes. Have you been a fighting man?"

  "I have been trained to fight, sir, but I am not good at it."

  Who cared what an infidel thought of his own worth? "It is good for a man to know his limits," Saladin said.

  The Frank properly bowed his head and said nothing.

  "You are free to go," Saladin told him. "To Jaffa. To deal in horseflesh."

  The man touched his head to the tent floor as a Moslem does at prayer, in submission.

  "But mark this, Christian. You will be gone from this land before the year is out. All of your kind will be gone. It is war between us now—the final war. My advice to you is: Do not buy young horses, and do not pay too much for them, or you will never get full value for your price... Do you understand what I have said?"

  "Not really, My Lord Saladin," the man stuttered.

  "I don't expect you to. Now be on your way."

  Saladin turned and signaled to Mustafa. It was certainly time for the call to prayer.

  * * *

  "Are we alive, Master Thomas?" The Bedouins had relieved Leo of his old mare, and now he swayed along the road to Jaffa on the back of a camel—one that continually tried to bite his knees.

  Amnet's French-bred warhorse had been exchanged at sword's point for a swaybacked, spavined old beast with split hooves and running sores on its legs. The animal wheezed so that Thomas had not the heart to urge it along at
a pace faster than an amble.

  "We appear to be alive," Amnet answered him.

  "I thought General Saladin had put a price on the heads of all Knights Templar."

  "He has."

  "And yet he did not take yours."

  "I did not announce myself."

  "But he could see the stains outlining where you ripped the cross from your tunic. I saw him looking at the very spot."

  "And, because I did not swagger into his tent and order his slaves about, he assumed I had stolen the tunic, Leo. A man is what he does and says—not what he wears. Even a Saracen lord can understand that much philosophy."

  "Why did he let you go? He seemed to make the decision after he had handled the crystal."

  "You noticed that, did you?"

  "I notice everything, Master. As you have taught me."

  "I was praying hard that he would let us go. It was a gift from Heaven that he did not keep the Stone instead."

  "That Stone is important to you? Why? What is it?"

  "Ah, now, Leo! Enough questions. You have to leave me something still to teach you."

  "But—all right. I can wait. Not for long, though."

  * * *

  "You want us to what?" roared Roger, Grand Master of the Order of the Hospital. His voice rang off the ceiling beams of the refectory in the Keep at Jaffa.

  The Grand Master's outrage was reflected in a general stir and murmur among the assembled knights of his Order. Echoes reached Amnet's ears of "Hear, hear!" "Never!" and "Won't do it!"

  "Only the Pope himself can order the Knights of the Hospital into battle," Roger continued in a barely more reasonable voice. It was clear from the tone of the convocation, however, that he felt no need to explain or justify himself to a messenger like Amnet.

  "That is true," Amnet agreed, making his own voice loud to overcome the murmurs. "Your Order owes filial allegiance—as does mine—only to His Holiness. But our fortunes may be closer to home, with the interests of King Guy."

  "Guy has made his deal with Chatillon and thereby supped right fully with the Devil. Let Guy find his own way out to the jakes."

  "And if Guy will not let Reynald go to the Devil alone, what then?"

  "Eh?" Roger seemed to be sniffing at a strange, new thought.

  "If King Guy raises an army of Franks in the Holy Land to fight Saladin, and if the Order of the Hospital aid him not—what then?"

  "Then Guy falls into a tub of shit."

  "And if he should beat this Saracen general?"

  "Eh?"

  "If all the Franks in Outremer should win the field that day, and the Knights of the Hospital have done nothing, then there might be a measure of bad feeling against you. Tithes might not be so forthcoming from the duchies at home. Loans might not be repaid so quickly. Certain fiefs within the gift of certain kings might be withheld."

  "It will not be the first time. We have felt the weight of royal displeasure before."

  "And His Holiness... he certainly would smile as God smiles, impartially, from the heights of Heaven. After all, our Urban is not, certainly, a political man. He would not be swayed in his affections by the wrath of kings and the purses of those who hold temporal power, now would he?"

  "Ah—unnh." Roger seemed to be choking on a new thought. The hall behind Amnet went quiet, except for the shuffling of boots on the floor's stone flags.

  "You might have little enough to lose, Master Roger, if you and your knights could know that King Guy and all who ride with him will come to grief. Certainly, such doughty fighters as the Order of the Hospital could maintain their place in this barbarous land with their own swords. But if King Guy and his familiar, Prince Reynald, should emerge victorious and thus stronger than before—and who should pray for anything else? As it would be a sin to call down blessings on the arms of infidels—then your posture of aloofness might not sit so well in certain favored high places."

  "Do you know this?"

  "I see what any man can see with his own eyes."

  "But it is said, among some, that you have the power to see beyond mortal knowledge. Have you foreseen, by your arts black or white, the outcome of this affair?"

  Amnet paused before answering. He felt his eyes turn inward, as if at a cue from the Grand Master. From the darkness behind his temples he could see a face, grim and pale, with flowing mustaches, looking back at him.

  "I have not that power, such as you understand it."

  "That's no answer, Thomas Amnet."

  "It's the only answer I have to give, My Lord."

  "You have spun our heads with riddles and suppositions, Templar. You could confuse the buttons off a bishop's cassock and the beads off a nun's rosary."

  "I have laid out for you the pitfalls of your course of action—and the prizes available in reconsideration."

  "What prizes?"

  "Templars and Hospitallers have long rode together."

  "Not as near as you'd think."

  "True, we have had our differences, Master Roger. But the King would hold you all in high esteem if you would put your swords in his service again."

  "Define 'esteem'."

  Amnet paused. To make hints was within his commission from Master Gerard. To make promises—that was another matter.

  "If we can roll this Saladin and his Ayyubites back beyond his borders, then there would be new fiefs to claim. Fields of green Egyptian corn, metal mines in the Sinai, pearl fisheries along the Red Sea..."

  "And King Guy's pet Templars would take first pick, would they not?"

  "Does not a father work harder to please a wayward son than one who has remained obedient to his wishes?"

  "More riddles, Thomas! I swear, you have one for every day of the week."

  "My Lord does me too much credit."

  "Credit enough that I'll not debate you. We are simple men here. Earnest fighters. Pious monks. Honest traders. Not men of quick words and opportune alliances, such as you of the Temple."

  "But, My Lord—"

  "No, Thomas. We made our quarrel with the King openly, over the matter of his succession. We cannot bury that for a few cornfields and a handful of pearls."

  "I was not thinking to buy your decision, Master."

  "Of course not, because it's not for sale. If King Guy comes to a bad end in this holy war that Reynald has brought on—well, we won't hold a mass of celebration. We don't bless Saracen arms. But we won't lift a hand, either, to keep Guy out of the pit that Reynald's pride has dug for the both of them... and for you, if you ride with them."

  "I hear you."

  "Because you are a true knight and have pled the cause of your Order honestly, I'll not punish you for coming here. You may return to Jerusalem—if the Saracens will let you."

  "Thank you, Master Roger."

  "Go quickly, Thomas. The war is upon us."

  * * *

  File 04

  A Cold and Deadly Place

  Do not go gentle into that good night

  Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  —Dylan Thomas

  * * *

  By his third night, Tom Gurden was getting the rhythm of the pool. The main thing he had to learn was that any woman who could not find a receptive man there—other than the piano player—was either too shy or too drunk to cause him much trouble. A smile or a subtle blocking move with thigh or elbow would put her off. If he kept on playing, he was usually all right.

  By contrast Tiffany and the other regular waitress, Belinda, were under constant attack—from men and women alike. Some of it was gentle and good-natured, some rough. Without appearing to stare, or to care, Gurden counted the number of snatches, fondlings, and various outright penetrations that Tiffany endured in the course of an hour. Neither girl actually cried out. And neither seemed in danger of drowning, so long as she could hold her breath for longer than thirty seconds. After just one enrage
d lunge away from his keyboard that first night—which was met with a chorus of laughter—Gurden made it his business not to make it his business. But sometimes he wondered that there wasn't more blood in the water.

  He quickly learned that the preferred tempo in the pool was nineties music, slow rock and sometimes soul—both of which he could play for hours. However, the customers wanted their tunes voiced in the blare of sax and the thrumming of strings, neither of which his Clavonica was equipped to deliver.

  Or not at first.

  The Clavonica was a semi-classical instrument, with preset buttons duplicating the stops on a pipe organ. He found that the Trumpet and Celeste came closest to the required sounds. When he first tried those stops, they still sounded pretty far—to his ear—from real sax and string settings. But the longer Gurden played, correcting his touch, hitting some notes and phrases more authoritatively than he otherwise would, concentrating on pressing out the sounds, the closer then that Trumpet and Celeste approached the modern voices he wanted.

  The first time he heard the Clavonica playing real sax and strings, he thought it was a distortion from the underwater speakers. But they definitely had not sounded that way on his earlier sets in the pool.

  Next he thought his ear was just playing tricks, delivering the sounds he was trying for. But his ear had been trained by years of hard practice against hearing just anything his fingers wanted to achieve.

  Then he thought the electronics had been shorted out by moisture and chemicals, disrupting the waveform circuits. But the following afternoon he arrived at the pool early, hauled the piano bar out onto the tiles, and broke down the Clavonica. Its circuit boards were pristine, and they checked out with his multimeter—except that the Trumpet was clearly generating the attack-decay-sustain-release of a saxophone, and the Celeste was making the wave-forms of a modern string section.

  Finally he accepted that the instrument was responding to him in a way that no piano of wood or steel and hammered strings beating on the air ever did. Tom Gurden had, somehow, effected a change in the Clavonica's circuitry.