The Book of Whispers

by Kimberley Starr

  I take her in my arms. Her heartbeat quickens perceptibly. For a moment, she holds me too. Then she straightens and pulls away. ‘Luca, please don’t.’

  I drop my arms. Her pupils are wide. I don’t understand. ‘Suzan…’

  She conceals her eyes. ‘No, Luca. Listen. It isn’t you. I don’t want…’

  ‘Suzan, what don’t you want?’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘Luca, I can’t have a lover. Don’t make me spell everything out. I don’t want…this.’

  Her words sting me. Clearly, Suzan wants to be in there, with Mattiolas. She wants to be looking after him.

  ‘You can see me any time you want.’ She’s so sincere, I feel a new wave of pain. ‘We can read the book. There’s a lot we need to work out, together. We’re friends. But we can’t be more than that.’

  Suzan

  I can’t remember when I first loved him. I can’t imagine a future where I don’t love him. I’ve been falling headfirst into this ever since we met and, though I’ve always known this would hurt, I can’t resist the urge to fall further. I didn’t know such clashing emotions were possible. I love Luca, I love him completely. I’ve been falling into love like the man who drowned himself with too much water. I love him and it hurts, and for Luca’s sake, I must lose him.

  And over the next sevennight so many die in the Antioch camp from typhoid, I see loss everywhere. I move around, handing out treatment and hoping for distraction.

  Eventually people notice that my treatment works. They remember my warning about Dorylaeum. The moon waxes and wanes, and waxes and wanes again. At least my cure works.

  In the two moons after discovering my enchanted bow, I gain a reputation for helping with illness and food. People get better. They start to talk about being well enough to get back on the road.

  Soon we’ll be moving on to the goal we’ve always had: Jerusalem.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ten moons

  LEAVING ANTIOCH

  Suzan

  One night, Luca visits and says everyone faces a decision about continuing with our pilgrimage. ‘A couple of lesser Princes are staying in Antioch instead of moving on.’

  I look round the room. I can understand the temptation. The small house has started to feel like home. These are our plates and blankets, and we have regular shelves to store them on. We have a routine of going out to find food and taking turns to prepare it.

  ‘We didn’t go on a pilgrimage to win Antioch.’ Luca looks at me more closely. ‘Do you want to stay here instead of moving on?’

  I want to go wherever he goes, but I can never say that. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Do you know what Serafina wants?’ Luca asks. Of course, that’s the most important thing.

  ‘Here she is,’ I tell him, as the door to the next room opens. ‘Ask her.’

  Serafina doesn’t need time to decide. ‘I’ll be going where you go, of course,’ she tells Luca.

  I look down, running my fingers over the nap of the rug I’m seated on. I like Serafina. As Conte, I tell myself, Luca must marry someone, must carry on his family line. He cannot marry me. I have to learn to be content, if he can be happy with Serafina.

  I wish seeing them together didn’t make my own future seem so lonesome.

  Over the next few days, we prepare to return to life on the road. Knights repack their bags, oil their armour. Grooms sling leather bags over their horses and prepare them for the trek through Antioch’s gates—this time onto the road leading to Jerusalem. Houses that had begun to feel like homes are emptied of blankets and cooking pots.

  Finally, we leave behind Antioch’s towering walls and their colossal demon statues. We ride on. Luca and I return to our old habit of riding by day and reading by night. Sitting by small campfires, I translate the pages.

  Days pass. The book continues counting down. Ten moons, it says now.

  ‘How can it take us that long?’ I wonder. ‘People say we’ll reach Jerusalem in two sevennights!’

  That would be half of one moon. But people who predict speed are soon proven wrong. Our progress is slow. Many pilgrims walk. Those two sevennights pass. A moon passes and the season changes. Water supplies once again dwindle.

  One afternoon, we spy what appears to be a town in the distance: trees clustered around stone buildings, a defensive wall. Pilgrims spur their horses and quicken their steps, imagining food and water. But when we reach the structures, we find they are actually abandoned Roman ruins. Bound demons, for too long starved of human misery, rejoice at our arrival and disappointment. People stop moving when they see the Princes up ahead, supervising the assembly of their bright pavilions.

  While I’m pitching my own tent, Luca comes back to me, frowning. Around him, demons click and flutter, obviously excited.

  ‘We might be in trouble,’ Luca says. ‘I need you to see something.’

  I follow Luca to the Princes’ pavilion.

  ‘Here,’ Luca says, sliding onto the dirt and lifting a tent flap. I crouch beside him and peer into the candlelit opening beyond.

  Bohemond and Raymond face each other, obviously arguing. Each wears a flamboyant tunic, polished chainmail, and, supported by a line of guards, rests his hand theatrically upon the hilt of his sword.

  The two Princes don’t need protecting from Saracens now. They need protecting from each other.

  In their strange clicking language, the demons crowded in here are obviously arguing too. A small demon with two pairs of flashing eyes talks angrily at length. A larger demon walks up to the small demon, opens a mouth filled with multiple rows of teeth, and swallows it whole. Other demons cheer.

  Bohemond and Raymond pause and look around, like they heard the demon excitement. Raymond growls. ‘I’m leading this group now,’ he insists. ‘Adhemar left me that responsibility!’

  ‘Over my dead body!’ Bohemond retorts.

  The larger demon regurgitates the smaller one, who stumbles, sullen and resentful, but now quiet.

  ‘There are ways to make that happen!’ Raymond says.

  A round demon with a long nose and beady eyes is tethered to one of Bohemond’s coin bags.

  ‘It’s the demon Philargyria,’ I say. ‘I read about it in the book. It says—’

  ‘Suzan! Stop!’

  Luca grabs my arm. Philargyria has turned away from the confrontation between the two Princes and, instead, peers in our direction.

  ‘It heard its name!’ Luca whispers harshly.

  The stench of rotting fruit intensifies as Philargyria approaches us, turns its head to one side and peers beneath the curtain flap. Luca and I lie there in the dirt, while red eyes stare insolently at us.

  Luca’s breath is warm in my hair. ‘Demons can’t hurt us just by looking.’

  Philargyria makes a sudden sharp noise. Other demons turn and stare at us. We hold our ground and stare back. My hands become clammy.

  Bohemond and Raymond and their advisors continue arguing. One by one, demons lose interest in Luca and me—few are interested in anything for long—and drift back to where they were before.

  Bohemond and Raymond list multiple roads we could all walk down, multiple towns and cities that we could claim along the way. They can’t agree about anything. Finally, Philargyria returns to the Princes.

  I sit beside the fire that Luca’s groom has laid out for him.

  ‘Philargyria didn’t like hearing its name,’ Luca says.

  ‘The book says Philargyria is a demon of greed,’ I tell him. ‘That’s why it’s attached to Bohemond’s money belt. And the demon attached to Raymond’s chainmail coif is called Kenodoxia.’

  ‘Let me guess. Kenodoxia is a demon of pride. Have you seen how many jewels Raymond wears? Suzan, there’s something else we need to talk about.’

  I shuffle away from him. ‘No, Luca. Not—’

  ‘You know how I feel,’ he insists.

  ‘Luca. You can’t talk to me like this.’ I stand to leave.

  ‘I know.’ He scowls
. ‘I don’t know how Mattiolas resists you.’

  ‘Mattiolas?’ I repeat. ‘What would he…?’

  Luca closes his eyes. ‘Don’t. But I’ll stop talking like that, Suzan. If you’ll stay here. Now. Please.’

  I hesitate.

  ‘Please.’

  I move a few steps away before sitting again.

  Luca rolls onto his back and stares up at the stars. ‘Don’t pay attention to me, Suzan. I’m foolish. I’m sad. I miss so many things! I used to wonder why my stepmother, Anna, got so homesick. But I miss seeing Father working on the estate accounts. I never thought I’d miss that. My fencing master is following us, but I even miss my Latin tutor! I miss the stable cats!’

  I nod. ‘Luca, I understand. I feel like this too. My mother owns hardly anything. You’ve seen her cell. But I still miss her shawl, the touch of her fingers. I miss her singing to me at night, using music from her santur to help me sleep. I miss Cappadocia. I grew up there. Parts of it were terrible. But it was home.’

  Luca’s voice is gruff. ‘My mother sleeps beneath a weeping poplar in the family graveyard. I miss weeping with the tree. And I’ve missed the chance to talk to Father about demons. He’d have known things—things his father would have told him—I can never ask now.’

  ‘But you told him what you saw! He let Ramberti perform that rite!’ Luca is so hard on himself! Then I see the expression on his face and relent. ‘I’m sorry, Luca. I know you don’t want to hear this.’

  ‘I think he was trying to protect me.’ Luca frowns. ‘He saw demons, but didn’t want to. He could never be exorcised himself. He was the Conte. He had to look like he was in charge. But he could desire it for me. He wanted to help me. In his own way, he was being kind.’

  I step away from the fire, forcing myself to leave Luca. Leaning against a nearby cart is a large demon with three heads—those of a goat, a bull and a sheep. All six eyes focus on me, then, in unison, it licks three sets of lips. I’ve seen its picture in the book: Asmodeus, the demon of lust.

  Asmodeus uses a claw to draw circles around its nipples, then trace a line down to where its genitals should be. It thrusts its hips and looks back at Luca.

  I turn and look. Luca lies, staring at the infinite night sky and all the millions of silvery stars ready to shower down on us. I can’t control my emotions—Luca is beautiful, and I love him. But I can control my feet.

  I continue to walk away.

  The demon walks its fingers in the air, indicating I should return. Passing it, I whisper, ‘You can’t make me do anything, Asmodeus!’

  All three heads pull back in surprise. The demon didn’t expect to be seen or named.

  Around me, I hear laughter. I don’t care. Asmodeus has no business here anyway. What I feel for Luca isn’t lust. I love him. My desire to feel his love is as natural as the desire to breathe. It can’t be true that loving a man and wanting to be loved by a man are sinful. Even if it’s very true that these things are dangerous. I am frightened of danger and of pain, more for him than for myself.

  More sevennights pass. The food we brought from Antioch runs out. Now everyone has to survive on what we can forage or hunt. I use my enchanted bow and feed people when I can, but there aren’t enough hours in the day for one bow to feed the thousands who still journey with us.

  One night, while I’m studying the bow by the campfire and trying to ignore its demon (tiny as an insect, trying to fly up my nose), I see a much larger demon at the next campsite stroll up to a skinny woman eating bread while a child sleeps feverishly beside her.

  The demon leans its head towards the woman’s, and pokes out its snake-like tongue. It wriggles until it finds the woman’s ear, then threads its way in—and out the woman’s mouth.

  ‘Oh, I am a greedy bitch,’ the woman’s mouth says. Her child wakes and frowns, but the woman has been reduced to a puppet. ‘I can’t wait to die.’

  The demon pulls away and leaps high into the air, squealing with glee.

  ‘What?’ her child asks. ‘Mummy? You want to die?’

  The demons are obviously learning new tricks as they get closer to their goal. I’m horrified and scared of what’s yet to come.

  Other pilgrims find comfort with each other. Through flimsy tent barriers, I hear lovers together. I lie in the dark, alone, and think of Luca, so close by. I can only imagine being with him. He’s forever beyond reach, however I ache.

  Each morning, it’s back to the walk, back to our slow progress. Step after step, day after day, the human river stretches forwards and backwards in the desert. Eventually, one morning we pause in the desert outside a sand-coloured town called Maarrat. The same colour as the dull dirt beneath the sparse grass at our feet, its walls look like they grew here. Other than the walls themselves, and their locked gates, nothing of the town is visible. The place has locked itself down, retreating like a turtle into its shell. News of our arrival rode here ahead of us.

  Raymond and Bohemond order their pavilions to be pitched in a field, just beyond bowshot of the walls. Their carpets and rugs are unrolled, their banners unfurled. We’ll be here for a while. Later in the day, they set up rival courts and start receiving visitors. ‘Just like at home,’ Luca tells me.

  Peter Bartholomew enjoys his new influence. With a large tent near the Princes’ pavilions, he shares the favour of each and receives guests of his own. He’s been collecting relics, gifts from pilgrims who want to show their faith in him, and has amassed an army of the strangely beautiful demons we’ve learned to associate with pride, with mask-like faces and serpents beneath.

  Percy finds me outside my tent one evening, two moons after we left Antioch. He sits beside me and smiles down at the book. I’ve been trying to memorise certain pages so changes will be apparent.

  ‘Suzan, you’re alone,’ Percy observes. ‘I wouldn’t leave a beautiful woman alone. Doesn’t Luca see you?’

  ‘Luca sees pretty clearly,’ I tell him.

  Percy leans closer and picks up a strand of my hair, inspecting it like some precious metal. ‘But does he see you’re clearly pretty?’

  ‘That’s not clever. What do you want?’

  He chuckles. ‘That should be obvious. I want you. And I want my helm back.’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘I have a message for Luca. The world needs a Conte de Falconi. It doesn’t care who the Conte is. He needs to give me back my helm, or I’ll see to it his cousin inherits the title.’

  I wave him away. ‘Narlo isn’t the heir. Luca has siblings in San Gimignano. If Narlo told you anything else, he lied. I won’t pass on your message. So you can stop calling me pretty.’

  Percy laughs. ‘Don’t try to charm me, Suzan. Siren magic only works on mortals.’

  Percy leaves. Siren magic. Had I been trying to charm Percy?

  Shortly afterwards, Luca returns from tending Orestes. ‘Want to come for a walk?’

  Of course I do. I shrug. I can’t risk trying to charm him. ‘Not right now. You should ask Serafina.’

  But Luca sits and glares at the fire. I’m glad when Brother Bonaccorso comes and sits with us. ‘Good evening, Conte and Suzan. Luca, I thought it was time I saw how you’re going. You’ve suffered a great loss on this pilgrimage.’

  Luca scowls.

  ‘He finds it difficult—’ I begin.

  ‘I don’t even remember why we came!’ Luca says suddenly. ‘Brother, you know what I mean. You said you want to know we’re doing the right thing. How can anyone know? What’s the real difference between Saracens and pilgrims? We’re going to save Jerusalem? From what?’

  I wait for Brother Bonaccorso to look shocked, but he sighs. ‘There’s a story I’ve been promising you since Constantinople. About six blind men asked to describe an elephant. One of them feels its back and says an elephant is like a massive granary full of grain. One feels the brushy tip of its tail and says an elephant is like a broom. One feels the trunk and says an elephant is like a plough. The blind man who feels its
head says an elephant is like a pot.’

  I glance at Luca. Has he calmed down enough to follow this?

  ‘The point of my story is to ask this question. Which man’s description of the elephant is right?’

  ‘Well, they all are,’ I say, carefully. ‘In their way. None of them knows the whole elephant.’

  Brother Bonaccorso’s smile evolves into a grin. The expression seems to smooth years from his face. His happiness is contagious. For a while, we forget our hunger and fatigue. ‘Exactly, exactly,’ he says. ‘This story comes from The Wisdom of Balahvar. Translated by Euthymius the Illuminator himself. Which I am disappointed to realise few people have read. And can you imagine what the point of the story is?’

  ‘I suppose we’re all a bit blind,’ Luca suggests.

  Brother Bonaccorso’s grin fades, but he nods. ‘This is a conversation I had with the old Conte, and—and with the young Conte. That’s your father, Luca. He used to walk to the monastery and we would talk. About God, for one thing. How can Saracens be so certain about Allah? How can Jews deny the Messiah? The Wisdom of Balahvar itself is a translation of stories about Buddha from Hindustan. How can so many people live spiritual lives and search for the truth and be wrong? Why would God allow this to happen?’

  ‘You find the answer in this story?’ I ask.

  ‘We each have a different truth,’ Brother Bonaccorso agrees. ‘But our differences don’t mean other people are wrong. We each feel only part of the elephant. And think, God is very much greater and more difficult to comprehend than an elephant.’

  CHAPTER 17

  Eight moons

  NORTHERN SYRIA

  Suzan

  Maarrat, I read.

  The words are blurry. I blink. It’s later that evening, and I’m tired.

  Maarrat.

  Ginger, cinnamon and salt.

  I blink again. Reading the book can be like watching ants march across a page. While I rub my eyes, the letters rearrange themselves.

  I open the flaps of my tent and step outside for more light. The book shows me the familiar list of ingredients, reminding me that more ginger and cinnamon can be found growing nearby. When I skip ahead to a page that looks like it should be about demon species, the writing changes so that, once again, I’m told about ingredients.