The Book of Whispers

by Kimberley Starr

  Death doesn’t come.

  We stand there, my anonymous attacker and me. Around us, bodies writhe and lives bleed away. The man pushes me, forcing me to walk.

  I don’t know why my captor has allowed me to live for so long. I recall the words Ramberti once spoke. He told us Pope Urban promised remission of sins for those of us who die upon this journey. Any Christian who dies in this battle will go straight to Heaven. I’ve been so worried about Father I never considered I myself might die. I wonder if, hidden just yards away, Suzan is praying for me?

  I’ve spent my life regretting not really knowing my mother. Now I’m determined to see the face of the man who will free the soul my mother gave me. I gather enough strength to turn my head.

  What I see makes me gasp.

  It’s no Saracen. I can’t believe it, but the man who seized me, who forces me to walk among bodies and gore, his knife pressed hard against my windpipe, is none other than Dragonus Ramberti.

  ‘It’s me!’ I say, speaking carefully, for I don’t want the vibrations of my throat to bring my skin any nearer to the blade of his knife. Perhaps he mistakes me for a Saracen?

  ‘Luca de Falconi,’ he says. ‘Look at your father.’

  What?

  I peer ahead. Ramberti is right. Father is nearby. Bloody but strong in his armour, he stands in a pile of broken bodies.

  ‘De Falconi!’ Ramberti yells.

  Father looks in our direction. He sees Dragonus Ramberti. He sees me. He sees that blade, and a muscle twitches in his jaw. ‘Monsignor, you have found my son.’

  ‘You know what I want,’ Ramberti says.

  For a long moment I hear only the wails and cries of the wounded and dying around us. Father lowers his head. ‘You made your demand clear this morning.’

  Ramberti pushes his blade firmly against my throat. My heartbeat pulses against it. ‘Shall I give the boy his first shave with my blade? It will be very close.’

  Terror makes me nearly delirious.

  ‘No!’ Father says.

  ‘If the boy lives, will you give me the book?’ Ramberti continues.

  Slowly, Father lowers his hands. ‘What’s mine is yours.’

  For a moment it seems as though the blade will slice into my throat, then I’m pushed roughly to one side and Ramberti strides forwards, flourishing his sword.

  ‘You heard that, boy?’ he demands.

  I clutch my neck and look at my hand, expecting to see it covered in blood. But all I see are drying bloodstains from earlier injuries.

  Father yells, ‘Luca, run!’

  I can’t run. I can’t stand. My legs have softened like the bloody mud clinging to them.

  ‘Luca!’ Father’s eyes are wide.

  Ramberti reaches him. He grabs Father’s head. Father turns, raising his sword once more. Ramberti stumbles, or seems to.

  Father pauses. Then, with a mighty roar and a gust of air, Ramberti recovers his feint and plunges his sword right through Father’s chest.

  ‘Father!’ I scream.

  And this is it. This is the day, this is the hour, this is the moment. Near vespers, on this day. This is the dream horror that brought me on this pilgrimage.

  ‘I will have that book!’ Ramberti roars, as he leans over Father’s collapsing figure. He pushes hard against him, withdrawing his weapon.

  He turns, pointing the sword at me. Does he mean to kill me too?

  ‘Have you heard of Herostratus?’ he demands.

  I can’t believe the madness.

  ‘Herostratus destroyed the Temple of Artemis,’ Ramberti says. ‘In Ephesus. Near here. Later, when you call me your enemy, remember this—Herostratus is famous for what he destroyed. I would rather have that fame than no fame at all. And that is why weaklings like you de Falconis can never defeat me. I will have your book or I will have it destroyed. And when we reach Jerusalem, I’ll use it to help me become king.’

  I rush to my father’s side. My legs weaken and the ground sways.

  ‘Steady yourself,’ Ramberti orders.

  ‘You killed him!’ I shout.

  But Father is not yet dead. I reach for his hand and his long fingers close around mine.

  ‘No one will believe you,’ Ramberti says.

  I look around. The fighting has taken even Mattiolas far from me. I can just make out Narlo engaged in combat with a tall Saracen knight.

  I turn back to Father. His eyes are closed.

  ‘Mourn for your father. And remember I own that book. It was the price he paid for your life. Bring it to me when I call for it.’

  Ramberti strides away. I sink down beside Father. I have lived this moment so many times before, and yet I have never lived it. Though I came upon this journey to save him, what I feared is coming true—and it’s my fault.

  Father’s eyes open once more. Blood rushes from him as he clutches his stomach, but he is not gone yet.

  ‘Luca,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, Father.’ I lean closer, and hold him, for he has started to shiver.

  ‘This should have happened at home. Years from now. Not at Ramberti’s hand. You’ll have justice for this.’

  It’s a simple fact. ‘I will.’

  ‘Don’t…’ His voice fades.

  ‘Don’t what?’ I lean my ear close to his mouth.

  The breath from him is faint. ‘Don’t die avenging me.’

  I sit back. His faltering eyes hold mine, then close.

  I stand, roaring for justice, for vengeance. The world slips away. I succumb to absolute loss.

  Nearby, I hear Ramberti arguing with Thanatos. Thanatos is angry with him. I don’t know or care why. When I open my eyes, Thanatos approaches. I’ve seen him everywhere on the battlefield.

  Father takes a final, shallow breath, his body limp. I step back. It’s like I’ve been absorbed into my own dream. I recognise Thanatos now. He was never the man who was going to kill Father. But he leans over him. Something in their spirits touch and he draws the long silver threads of life from Father’s mouth, welcoming him to death.

  It is Ramberti who killed Father, not Thanatos. Thanatos is the demon of death himself.

  In my dreams, I heard a voice.

  Don’t let me go.

  In all the moments from now until Armageddon, I will never hear Father say he forgives me. Father will never return to the villa near San Gimignano, banners waving in the wind. Anna will never come running to meet us, her face lit with joy, forgetting her own homesickness in her relief at our return.

  Father goes straight to Heaven, we’re told, along with every other Christian who helped send Saracens to Hell this day. All I can think of is how much he would rather be going home.

  I’ll have revenge for this.

  Suzan

  There are more yells. I look around. Claudine, the child whose parents haven’t been found, lies still in the mud, her little hand damp and warm in mine. Drucia stands, safely, and around her, others stand too. Arrows have stopped falling. The sun has set.

  The battle is over. We have survived.

  The yells become triumphant. Those Saracens who remain on the battlefield realise they’ve been abandoned. They run. Our knights chase them. Claudine stands too, her mouth falling open.

  Horses thunder past. The earth vibrates. The air is alive and rushes through me like joy.

  When the knights have all passed us by, chasing the retreating army, I look around. A calm descends. I’m in a field of dead and dying men. They must be my concern now.

  Drucia joins me and we spend our next hours on the gentle and heartbreaking work of calming the wounded, holding the hands of the dying and closing the eyes of the dead.

  ‘They are in Heaven now,’ Drucia tells me, when our work is done. We stand side by side in a devastated valley of bloody mud. Claudine sits nearby, shaking, beneath a cloak.

  ‘Claudine!’ a woman calls.

  Claudine looks up and runs to her. ‘Mother!’

  The woman looks at me. ‘Thank you,’ s
he mouths.

  I turn to look for my own people and find Mattiolas first. He looks exhausted, yet triumphant. Seeing me, he removes his helmet. His hair is wild.

  ‘Suzan!’ he shouts, and scoops me into the air. I’m too startled to protest.

  ‘Look what I’ve found for you!’ he says.

  He grasps my hand, turning my palm upwards. Into it, he deposits a large, blood-spattered gold amulet that looks like a cross, except for a circle at the head. The demon dangling from it is scaled, its skin covered in tarnished, bloody coins.

  The amulet vibrates gently. Shocked, I drop it and back away.

  Mattiolas looks confused. Perhaps he’s seen so much blood he’s blind to it, like other light sources become invisible in the sun’s brightness. I pick the amulet up, puzzled.

  ‘It’s yours, Suzan,’ Mattiolas says. ‘You keep it.’

  This golden object is precisely the sort of treasure Mattiolas came all this way to find. So why does he pass it to me?

  ‘You want it yourself,’ I say.

  Mattiolas shakes his head. ‘I thought I did. It’s an ankh. A Saracen had it.’

  I nod, recognising the shape from Luca’s book. I read about an ankh with mysterious qualities. ‘It’s Egyptian,’ I tell Mattiolas. I read it can take its owner on three journeys. I turn it over and wonder, how? ‘Why give it to me?’

  ‘You’ll think I’m mad. It sort of vibrated and pulled me. When I was heading to you, it began to calm. When I moved away, the vibrations became agitated. The metal got hot.’

  ‘It’s not hot or vibrating now,’ I say.

  Mattiolas shrugs. ‘It wants to be with you.’

  ‘It’s a lovely thing,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  We find Luca huddled over the form of a fallen knight.

  ‘Oh no,’ I breathe.

  It’s his father.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I kneel beside him, thinking we will pray. But Luca pushes me away.

  ‘Luca!’ says Mattiolas.

  I turn to him. ‘Please leave us alone.’

  Mattiolas holds my gaze, then swallows. ‘I’ll come back.’

  ‘Luca,’ I say gently. ‘Let me help you.’

  ‘Help me?’ he repeats. ‘How can you help me?’

  I look down at his father’s body. ‘Your father is in Heaven, Luca. Where all martyrs go.’

  Luca takes a deep breath and answers so quietly I think I must be mishearing. ‘It wasn’t a Saracen who did this. It was Dragonus Ramberti.’

  There’s madness in Luca’s eyes. Stunned, I sit down hard.

  ‘What will you do?’

  Having to explain his actions might make Luca think them through more clearly. But he is silent, his mouth a thin, decided line.

  I can’t bear to lose him like I certainly will if he acts in this rash mood. ‘Ramberti has left with one of the Princes,’ I lie quickly. ‘I saw him leave. To negotiate the surrender.’

  Luca looks around, his gaze too wild to register anything.

  Mattiolas returns. I ask him to take Luca away. ‘And get him very drunk.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Twenty-three moons

  THROUGH ANATOLIA

  Luca

  I don’t know how to continue with the pilgrimage or with life. But what choice is there?

  In the smoky morning light the day after the great battle, every muscle in my body, from my fingertips to my ankles, aches. My hands are blistered from my sword. My injured leg is wrapped in a piece of cloth, now soiled. Those with physic skills are busy with men more badly hurt. I have my own collection of herbs, leaves I’ve picked along the way, but they’re for the charm Suzan read for binding demons, not for healing damaged limbs.

  The flying demons have retreated. I’m too exhausted to care. They didn’t kill Father. I still need to stop the demons before they’re able to fulfil their plans in Jerusalem, but it’s Ramberti whom I need to kill.

  I receive a message from Bishop Adhemar congratulating me on the intelligence I brought him about Dorylaeum. I follow the messenger back to Adhemar’s pavilion and push my way between his guards. They are still bloody from battle, and now hung-over from celebrating and too tired to protest.

  Adhemar stands at an oak table, his finger tracing a line on a parchment map before him. He hasn’t seen battle himself, but his skin is pale from lack of sleep.

  ‘My father is dead.’

  Adhemar lowers his head. ‘Conte, my condolences.’

  Father is dead. I am the Conte de Falconi now. My whole life, I’ve been proud of being the heir. I don’t want the title yet.

  ‘Saracens are a bloodthirsty lot,’ Adhemar continues. ‘We’ve killed many of them. Don’t weep too much for our fallen, Conte. Many families have lost fathers, sons…they have gone ahead of us to the joys of Heaven.’

  ‘Father was murdered by Monsignor Dragonus Ramberti.’

  Adhemar frowns and looks around the room for his guards. ‘You are battle-maddened. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I saw it myself.’

  Adhemar runs his fingers over his face. ‘There was much death, Conte.’

  ‘I know what I saw.’

  Adhemar clicks his fingers. ‘Guards.’

  I turn. And like a nightmare, there he is. Standing in the tent, Ramberti himself.

  Two of Adhemar’s guards, roused from their lethargy, stride towards me. Ramberti doesn’t look concerned. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’

  As the guards reach me, I turn back to Adhemar. ‘Ramberti killed my father!’ I repeat.

  Ramberti shrugs. ‘All this talk of demons and predictions has addled your brain.’

  I fight against the guards. ‘You know I was right about Dorylaeum,’ I yell.

  Adhemar turns away. ‘A dozen men were right about battle at Dorylaeum,’ he says. ‘One also told me we’d be fighting giants and be rescued by dragons. Guards, take him away. And, boy, I will not hear this slander against my trusted advisor again. Do you understand?’

  I shout and struggle against the guards dragging me from the tent.

  ‘Your Eminence,’ Ramberti says, in a voice so loud I am sure he wants me to hear, ‘I do apologise. The new young Conte and I have a difficult history. He is not the most stable Tuscan you’ll meet.’

  ‘Do not let that boy near me again,’ I hear Adhemar say to his guards.

  By noon that day, Suzan is feted as a hero. Many lives were saved by the alarm she raised. A few tired knights cheer when she walks past their tent.

  ‘How can we reward you, m’lady?’ I hear one knight ask.

  Suzan nods at a basket of bread rolls at his feet. It’s nearly time for our noonday meal. ‘I have all I need. Poor people by the river would like food.’

  The knight looks puzzled. ‘Be generous,’ Suzan tells him. ‘That is what I want.’

  We walk on.

  ‘I’ve seen Thanatos,’ Suzan tells me. ‘He’s mostly interested in the deaths of powerful people?’

  ‘He’s the demon of death.’

  ‘It’s not quite that simple. Poor knights died, and Thanatos paid them no attention at all. We need to learn more about him, Luca. We’ll defeat him, I’m sure of it. One day in the future.’

  ‘I don’t care about the future.’

  I ignore Suzan’s hurt expression and go to my tent. Mattiolas comes for me and sits on the ground. I close my eyes. I don’t want him to go away. But I don’t want to be here myself.

  ‘Luca, I’ve dug the grave.’

  ‘You should have left it to me.’

  ‘You’re not well enough, Luca. Even if your leg wasn’t injured, your hands aren’t up to digging. And we’ll be leaving soon.’

  We find Brother Bonaccorso at my father’s grave, looking like the news has aged him twenty years. He offers me what comfort he can and leads us in quiet prayers for my father’s soul.

  ‘Onorato, the son of my dearest friend, a man who became another dear friend,’ he says, his voice fading in a
nd out. ‘This breaks the heart of an old man.’

  I want to tell him the truth. Ramberti did this. But why tell anyone? I’ll never be believed. The crime makes no sense. When we retreat to our tents, I try Mattiolas, just in case.

  ‘Monsignor Ramberti killed my father.’

  ‘Shhh!’ Mattiolas leans closer, a finger over his lips. His eyes are wide with alarm. ‘Luca, don’t let anyone else hear you like this. You don’t know what you’re saying.’

  I open my tent flap. ‘I know.’

  ‘You mean what you’re saying?’ His voice is very low.

  I look at him and nod.

  Mattiolas sucks in his breath, a long, low whistle.

  ‘Why?’ he asks. And, quickly, ‘No, don’t talk about it. Luca, you can’t say this to anyone else. Ramberti has powerful friends, including Adhemar himself. It’s too dangerous.’

  Suzan

  Days pass while we look after our wounded and say mass for our dead. Each night, I hear Luca struggle to sleep. He sits outside instead, on a fallen log, staring at the battle site. The loss of his father diminishes him like the loss of a limb.

  One night, I follow as he walks back to the battlefield. Chunks of broken armour and discarded chainmail litter the ground. A small demon sits beside the scabbard to which it’s bound. A section at the top of the scabbard has been sliced off. The demon is missing one of its wings.

  ‘See that,’ I murmur to Luca. ‘They become injured like the things they are bound to.’

  But Luca isn’t interested.

  The site is dotted with mourners. Mothers who’ve lost sons, sons who’ve lost mothers, children who’ve watched the dying agonies of parents they believed immortal. All around us are wails and laments.

  Luca is quiet.

  Three nights after the battle, I sit beside him and hold his hand. He looks down at my fingers, devoid of emotion. He turns my hand over and runs his fingertip over my palm.

  I close my eyes. My mother used to write there. Perhaps I should remind him that I, too, have lost a parent?

  But, though I hope to see my mother again, such hope has died for Luca. I’m silent. I sit and let him trace curious shapes into my palm.