Spira Mirabilis

by Aidan Harte

  ‘The Law is the Law,’ Yūsuf repeated.

  Bakhbukh looked between Yūsuf and Sofia, and sighed. ‘Then the Law … is wrong.’

  Yūsuf threw down his knife in disgust and stalked off.

  Sofia turned to the driver. ‘Who do you work for?’

  ‘Baron Masoir.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, fellow. I saved your life.’

  ‘It’s true, I swear! His widow, Melisende Ibelin, is running the business since Masoir was—’ He stopped and cast a wary look at Bakhbukh and the other Sicarii, then said simply, ‘Since the baron died.’

  ‘I want you to relay a message to your mistress, my friend. Tell her that Baron Masoir was not killed by Sicarii. Tell her that as long as Catrina sits on the throne, no caravan from Akka will be safe. Tell her it’s time to choose.’

  The caravans had been picked clean and the Sicarii were mounting up on their reserve mounts when Yūsuf returned and announced, ‘I have meditated and communed with God and I have decided that the Contessa is correct: for the time being we must bend in order to win the people to our righteous cause. When we have Akka – then will be the time to ensure that the Law is observed with due rigour.’

  After allowing the embarrassed silence to continue for an agonised minute, Sofia said, ‘Thou art most sage, O Nasi,’ and tapped her camel forward.

  As the Sicarii followed her, Yūsuf wondered whether he’d just won or lost.

  CHAPTER 16

  Half a dozen younger Lazars had gathered outside the door of the throne room to eavesdrop on their beloved Grand Master being on the receiving end of a verbal evisceration for once.

  ‘A fool: that’s what I look like. I look like you, Grand Master. Is that acceptable?’

  ‘If I may say in my defence—’

  ‘You may not. This isn’t the Haute Cour. I want no more silly adventures. Find out where they are.’

  ‘With respect, the Sicarii lairs have been secret for years—’

  ‘We have thousands of Ebionites in Akka. Someone must know something. Get out there and encourage them to be good citizens. Well? What’re you waiting for?’

  ‘About the – your – the prisoner’s sentencing,’ Basilius stuttered. ‘Have you set a date?’

  The patriarch looked on, secretly amused at the Grand Master’s blundering. As long as Fulk lived, Basilius could not feel secure in his position, but in his anxiety he quite failed to appreciate the queen’s dilemma. Traitor or no, Fulk remained a Guiscard. Killing Guiscards was not unprecedented, but it was not something to which she wished her subjects to grow accustomed.

  ‘When I do, Grand Master, you’ll be the first to know – now get out! What the devil you smiling at, Chrysoberges?’

  ‘Forgive me – a nervous twitch. You do know that if this disruption continues, Majesty, we won’t be able to celebrate All Souls?’

  ‘As you value your head, never say that again. That is the debt we owe our ancestors and I will not betray my subjects – the living or the dead.’

  ‘Of course, forgive me,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s just that – if you will permit me to observe – the new Grand Master lacks Fulk’s guile.’

  ‘I told you never to mention that name again.’

  Basilius was missing more than that, and they both knew it. Some of the longer-serving brothers had deeper scars too, wounds that left them as hollow as the Empty Quarter; these strange ones rallied round the new Grand Master.

  ‘What the Grand Master lacks is men. We need an army capable of finishing the job. What of my uncle’s successor? This base-born charioteer chap?’

  ‘By all accounts Prince Jorge secured the Purple Throne with surprisingly little red. The question is: will he come if you send for him?’

  ‘He is my vassal,’ she said crossly.

  ‘It pleases the Byzantines’ vanity to claim to be part of our holy enterprise. They recognise our lordship because it costs them nothing to do so. Whether and what they will pay for that privilege is a question—’

  ‘You and your endless questions. Let me pose you this: is Akka not the first city of Oltremare? Am I not its queen? I well remember the mace’s weight when first I took it up. This little prince will come when I call and he’ll help me crush this rabble. Then we’ll give Akka a Day of the Dead for the ages.’

  *

  As attacks on Akka’s trade caravans escalated, the merchants petitioned the throne for protection. They argued that it was the queen’s duty to keep the trade-routes safe – what else were they paying taxes for? Catrina duly committed her Lazars to guarding the convoys, but in return she demanded a larger percentage of their profits. Some initially baulked at this opportunistic extortion, but when their caravans returned empty – or failed to return at all – they bowed to the inevitable.

  Just as Sofia had intended, the Lazars’ new duties meant their attention was divided and the merchants’ operating costs were increasing almost weekly. She changed the Sicarii’s focus to the keraks. Swift communication between the forts had always been one of their strengths, but now it became a weakness as the news of one successful Sicarii strike followed hard on the heels of another. Sofia kept up the tension by sending scouts in several directions each day, so that each garrison became certain they were next. When darkness fell, the Sicarii filled the hills with noises, so the whole garrison would pass the night in a state of high alert, every eye fixed on the Sands. A week of sleepless nights made the men worthless when the real attack finally came.

  As they took kerak after kerak, Sofia came to know the men she fought with, and they her. The Sicarii trusted this strange queen come amongst them more than they ever would an Ebionite woman, though it was not Sofia’s martial prowess or her beauty that created this confidence. It was Iscanno. No singing angels surrounded his manger and no halo surrounded his smiling face. His laugh was sweet – but all babies’ laughs are sweet. It was love, and it emanated from him like warmth from a forge. The homesick looked at him and remembered home. The guilt-ridden heard his gurgle and remembered that they were once innocent. In a cruel world, perfect virtue is priceless. Sofia’s boy-child was a prodigy of love, and his mastery grew day by day until the cave of the assassins positively glowed with it.

  For years the other tribes had treated the Sicarii as pests, like the jackals or the east winds, but mostly they ignored them because they made themselves a nuisance primarily to the franj. They could not, however ignore the circle of black towers surrounding Akka and no longer in Lazar hands. The Zebulun were the first tribe to seek alliance. They hated the queen as much as any, but the real draw was the booty the Sicarii were winning. The Zebulun, though famous metalworkers, were not numerous, but it was a good start.

  One day a strange hawk shadowed them as they returned from a raid. Bakhbukh lured it down, and found a message attached to its leg.

  ‘The Benjaminites want to talk,’ he announced.

  ‘What they want is our spoils. Where were they when—?’

  ‘Yūsuf,’ said Bakhbukh, ‘I understand that you’re wary after Mik la Nan’s trickery, but things are different now. The Old Man is currently under the protection of the Benjaminites – it is he who has advised their nasi to join us.’

  ‘Nothing has changed,’ said Yūsuf haughtily. ‘We are still the vanguard of the Radinate.’

  ‘You’ve smothered that flame trying to protect it.’ Sofia’s patience with his pretensions was exhausted. ‘We’ve had it easy so far, but the Akkans won’t lie back while we ruin their livelihoods. I’m not looking for martyrdom. Of course we must enlist the other tribes. Tell them we will come, Bakhbukh.’

  Bakhbukh would once have spent hours trying to change Yūsuf’s mind – now he simply did as Sofia instructed.

  *

  A hundred unfriendly eyes followed Bakhbukh, Yūsuf and Sofia as they walked through the camp towards the great tent of Roe de Nail, nasi of the Benjaminite tribe. They lived in the shadow of Mount Gerizim, and their territory was Samaria, south of the bad
lands – the reason for their conflict with the migrating Naphtali.

  Bakhbukh pointed to the overlooking cliffs. ‘Up there, Contessa, is the Cave of the Old Man.’

  Yūsuf said mockingly, ‘Every rabbit hole in this land claims some association with the Old Man. He would have had to have lived three hundred years and been exceedingly fond of travel to have spent a single night in even half of them.’

  Roe de Nail did not rise from his pillow to greet them. He was rotund and soft-skinned, and his silks were as fine as those that adorned his fifty wives. ‘We have heard tell of your exploits, Contessa, but you must not assume the Benjaminites are unskilled in war,’ he said, and indicated his scimitar. ‘Here is my famous blade. It has killed fifty-seven men – nineteen Gad, five Issachar and one Zebulun, and the rest Napthtali.’

  Sofia believed the inventory, but not that he’d been wielding it at the time. ‘Any Akkans?’

  ‘Oh, I do not count the infidels. I know what you are thinking: why is such a warrior willing to join our little rebellion? I will tell you that when I heard of you stirring up the sand like a Jinni my first instinct was to hunt you down, but the Old Man advised me otherwise.’

  Sofia could see Roe de Nail was immensely proud to have the preacher under his protection.

  ‘He says a great change is at hand, and that all the faithful should lend their strength to it. The Napthtali dogs have not approached you? I’m not surprised. They are an impious lot, interested only in stealing land.’

  ‘They are no different from any tribe,’ said Bakhbukh, irritated by the nasi’s pomposity. ‘Did not the Benjaminites come from the Ein Gedi? Was it not once Benjaminites doing the displacing?’

  Despite Roe de Nail’s bluster, his men could certainly fight. As the tribal coalition numbers swelled, so their reach expanded. Sofia’s ultimate ambition was to attract the Napthtali, and after each successful raid she waited for an embassy, growing more and more frustrated when none came.

  Finally she concluded that they must do something Mik la Nan could not ignore.

  *

  The Kerak Malregard was the closest to Akka they had ventured. It was on a different scale to any of the keraks they had tackled hitherto. It had a large garrison, and stores to feed them – oil tanks and water cisterns, grain, and a windmill to grind it. If any tribe ever had the audacity – or the technical wherewithal – to attempt to besiege it, its dual walls provided multiple firing positions to make life very unpleasant for those trying to get in.

  Although Bakhbukh cautioned that it was premature, he still went along with Sofia’s plan. Yūsuf took part for different reasons. He was painfully conscious that the more successful raids Sofia led, the more his authority dwindled.

  The men of the Zebulun let their torches in the hills be seen, their commotion designed to draw the attention of the sentries while the Sicarii scaled the eastern wall. While Bakhbukh and Zayid silently dispatched the guards who stayed at their posts, Sofia and Yūsuf threw ropes across the void to the inner wall, then covered them while two of their Sicarii climbed across. Meanwhile, the Benjaminites launched an oil-pot attack on the western gate.

  All was going to plan until the Sicarii reached the top of the wall and found there were no sentries – instead, sitting at their ease and watching them, was a Napthtali tribesman – one of the pair Sofia had last seen in Akka’s Haute Cour.

  ‘Put your dagger away, Contessa. The Cat begs an audience with you.’

  Yūsuf, Bakhbukh and Zayid followed Sofia down the stairway to the bailey. Mik la Nan’s men lined the walls of the courtyard, cradling armfuls of booty. Sofia had often seen the Sicarii in a similar state after a victory: some were sleeping, some boasting and some were affecting indifference to their fresh wounds while determinedly chewing wads of khat.

  The Cat stood in the centre, dividing up the spoils – food and carpets, and arms – while the things they had no use for were thrown into a pile, to burn with the defenders’ bodies.

  After Mik la Nan put a torch to the great pile, he turned to Sofia and presented her with a silk scarf. ‘Contessa – this would make a splendid veil.’

  ‘Too bad I don’t need one. Are you ready to join us?’

  ‘I took the kerak for two reasons,’ he said calmly. ‘To show the Sands I am not afraid of the franj either, and to persuade you of your folly.’

  ‘The queen’s using you, Mik la Nan.’

  ‘I prefer to have no master, but I am a reasonable man. When the Winds chased me here I understood I must either find some accommodation with her or fight her. I chose the former because she is too powerful. For you, it’s different. You are a stranger in this land. The tribe that follows you is no tribe at all.’

  ‘I lead the Sicarii,’ Yūsuf protested, ‘and they are the vanguard of the Radinate—’

  ‘I have nothing against thievery; it’s an honest living,’ said the Cat, ‘but hypocrisy I cannot abide.’ He turned back to Sofia. ‘You have nothing to lose, but I am father to the Napthtali. Of course I will raid Catrina’s caravans, just as I raid the other tribes, but what you want, Contessa, is war.’

  ‘Do you shrink from it?’

  ‘You are too thin, Contessa, but tolerably pretty for a franj. These boys will do anything to prove their bravery to a fair maiden, but I am old and such games will not work on me. My dear, I do not shrink from suicide, I run from it. In a hundred years, we could not challenge Akka.’

  Sofia had spent enough hours in the Palazzo dei Signori to know the sound of a man who does not believe his own arguments. The Cat really wanted her to persuade the doubters in his tribe. ‘I have no quarrel with the Akkans,’ she said. ‘The queen has many enemies within the city. If we show them she is weak, they’ll kill her for us.’

  ‘Or she’ll kill them first – she has a gift for smelling out disloyalty, and much practise. And even if you are successful, what would we have gained?’

  ‘A life better than mere survival. There are some in Akka who know they can profit by working with the tribes, but Catrina means only to grind you down’ – Sofia picked up a handful of sand – ‘to this.’ She held her fist and let it drain, speaking loud enough for all the Napthtali to hear. ‘Tell me that is not so, you who have looked her in the eye.’

  The Cat could not deny it. ‘Even if the Napthtali joined with you, our combined strength would still be insufficient. We would need the Gad too, but the Gad will not fight with the Benjaminites, and my Napthtali will not fight with the Gad.’

  ‘Your quarrels are hurting the Ebionites.’

  ‘I said I am reasonable. I never claimed my people were.’

  ‘With your quarrels, you hand the queen the stick to beat you. No sooner did you enter the Sands than she sought to exacerbate the feud between you and the Gad.’

  ‘That is not Sicarii business,’ the Cat growled. ‘Be careful, Contessa. Even Catrina knows better than to get involved with Ebionite matters.’

  ‘Is that what you do when a fight erupts between two Naphtali? Stand aside?’

  ‘No. I settle it.’

  ‘Why do they listen to you? It’s none of your business.’

  ‘They listen because I am their nasi,’ he said with kingly resolution, ‘but alas, no man has the authority to make peace between nesi’im.’

  Bakhbukh had been listening to the fractious exchange with growing despair, but at these words he suddenly perked up. ‘There is one.’

  CHAPTER 17

  The charge that the Crusaders who captured Byzant – home to a hundred peoples and the best part of the world’s wealth – were themselves captured by its court, is not without foundation. While Byzant’s new princes kept the mob amused with races, the same old bureaucrats ensured that continuity prevailed. Oltremare’s territory had never been greater, but its poles pulled apart. When Akka lost Jerusalem, its claim to pre-eminence over Byzant lost all credibility.

  Byzant, a Study in Purple

  by Count Titus Tremellius Pomptinus

 
The streets were thronged as if it were a Holy Day, and the clackers of Akka made rickety ovation to welcome the Byzantines. The army’s large square banner was the richest Tyrian purple and its sharp streamers coiled like a nest of serpents. The two-headed eagle threaded in gold came alive as it bellied with a rare breath of fresh wind from the Sea of Filth. The Northerners carried their long kite-shaped shields over their shoulders. Their armour incorporated jointed metal scales and padded leather, and the coloured sashes revealed rank; those of the high officers were threaded with golden script. Many concealed their faces in ring-mail – but not young Prince Jorge. The Byzantine autokrator drove the quadriga with such ease that most onlookers did not recognise the skill required to control four feisty horses at once.

  Although Akka was nominally Oltremare’s imperial capital, it had long ceased to think of itself as such: everything that mattered came from Byzant, and everyone: politicians, actors, orators, and of course athletes.

  Jorge entered the city gates like a conqueror, hardly slowing despite the pressing throng that roared his praise. He scattered coins and stopped to kiss children and women young and old. He knew how to delight them, and he left them wanting more as he cracked his whip and flew off to cries of, ‘Jorge! Prince Jorge!’

  Most men who came to the Purple Throne were strangers to all but the queen and a few chosen courtiers. Prince Jorge, however, had been famous throughout Oltremare long before his accession. He made a quick circuit of the city, going down to the docks then through the packed bazaar, diving through the narrow streets with abandon, to the applause of the Sown and poor Marians alike, cheering him from the upper storeys of the tenements and flinging coloured paper and rice. The beggars roared their approval even as they dived out of the way. Finally he circled the citadel and came to a stop in the palace courtyard.

  Only then did the jostling courtiers get a proper look at him. As he leaped down, his long-sleeved vest of metal scales rippled and clanked. The lamellae were made alternately of lacquered iron and gilded bronze. Manikelians – splint armour – wrapped his forearms and legs in protective metal: formidable, but not bulky enough to slow him down. His crown, though handsomely gilded and inlaid with precious gems, was similarly practical: thick enough to withstand a blow, with no vulnerable opening in the centre.