Urd nodded, as if agreeing with someone that Clarinda couldn’t see. “Yes, I say this at the outset, for to do other than Fate demands will invite disaster — you must curb your impulse to do as you’ve done, and listen to your new sisters. This role you assume isn’t like the taking the helm of a ship, and you can’t fight your way through to the other side of these matters. We tend the threads, we weave, and we consult with Mimir before taking action.
“I leave you with these three mandates, and they must be obeyed, even if you don’t yet understand the whys and wherefores of our reasoning, nor the demands of the Sight that will come to you with increasing frequency. First, let Morpeth do as he will when he storms the Well of Fate – I fear that I must die, Clarinda. There’s no avoiding that outcome if the worlds are to survive. Second, the Sampo and Arngrim must not unite in the flames of the Niflheim Gate – if it comes to it, you must kill both Codex Wielder and his friend before they cause irreparable harm and open the door to Annen Verden. That door must remain shut! Lastly, and most importantly, Santini must be left alone with neither Dragon nor Deceiver. The words of Fafnir and Abbadon will turn on him in ways that no one can expect, and if he listens and acts, the worlds will be undone for nigh a thousand years —”
“There you are!” Genevieve exclaimed, suddenly in front of Clarinda and the Norn. Clarinda started, so entranced was she by the singsong tone of Urd’s prophesying. She quickly regained her composure, and looked helplessly from the older woman to her childhood friend.
“Clarinda,” Genevieve said, with a suspicious look at Urd, “I don’t think that you’ve introduced me to your friend before.”
Genevieve Stratioticus,” Urd said, unperturbed. “I am Urd. I soothsay to you thus, by ancient custom and out of respect for the bond you share with Clarinda.”
The woman looked severely at the girl. “And, it must be said, with words more kindly than your current personality deserves. Hear me: if you ignore the petition of your current suitor and join Clarinda in her voyage to the East, you’ll enjoy a long life in a clime far from here, with a good spouse whom you’ll truly love and to whom you’ll bear five children. Clarinda’s future ‘friend’ is like a brother to one who, having few words, will nonetheless say all you’ve ever wanted a man to say.”
“Excuse me?” Genevieve spoke with some haughtiness – after all, she was to be engaged to one of the twelve magisters in the emperor’s administration. Granted, the sixteen-year-old admitted to herself, the man was thirty-five years her senior and almost dead from consumption, but how dare this strange woman presume to comment on such things! “Clarinda, who is this person?”
Urd shook her head with a rueful smile and looked at Clarinda. “The Seeress’s Song includes much that even the Seeress couldn’t see. Mayhap it will be that your Hospitaller might be healed by else than the Dark Book, but you must be careful of him. The Seeress sayeth this:
‘From Glittertind’s height to Mimir’s dark well,
Naught heals damned knight save knowledge most fell,
That usurped life is the Dark God’s lie,
Bane to Nine Worlds is the Codex Lacrimae’.
“Be wary of Aurelius, Clarinda. He means well, but the name of ‘Well-Meaning’ has brought much, much sorrow into the world. I’m not yet certain that he’s the Codex Bearer, but if he is, more than this Midgardian place will be affected by his actions. I see the shadow of a three-faced man stretching from the figure of your Hospitaller, and in his path the death of Norns, the return of warlocks, and a slumbering evil awakened and unbound. Remember this above all else: do not let Santini be alone with the dragon, nor in a monk’s library with the Ancient Enemy. If he hears their words without your presence, more will be lost than you to him or him to another woman. There are other worlds than the nine we know, and your separation would doom all realities and unleash fire and nightmare. Prestare attenzione and beware.”
Urd stepped forward and gave Clarinda a brief, strong hug. Again, the younger woman — though shaken by the force of Urd’s words — was reassured by her touch. She whispered “grazie ” as the self-proclaimed Norn retreated to meld into the lengthening shadows of the northern part of the basilica. She was gone.
“Why’d you say, ‘thank you?’ ” Genevieve asked. “‘Thank you,’ for what? Truly, Clarinda: who was that woman, and why does she kind of look like you? Is she a relative?”
Clarinda initially said nothing, dazed by the encounter. Then she threaded her arm through the crook of her friend’s arm, saying with a slight smile, “Vene, Genie. Come. Let’s rejoin the boys, and get to the dockyards.”
Outside the basilica, the fog seemed to be wafting into the city more quickly than usual, as if sensing her need to get back to the sea and bringing part of its moisture to land. She heard the squawking of grey cranes flying overhead and thought that — if all went well — she’d soon be following those birds on their southward migration across the Great Sea to the Nile Delta to wait out the late fall and winter months in comfort.
Clarinda would be veering eastward from the cranes’ Egyptian landfall, however, because she now knew that her father would be found in Caesarea
She welcomed the coolness, letting the damp air chill cheeks flushed by Urd’s words before stepping down to rejoin the Stratioticus family.
Even if you reach Caesarea, hope not for your father.
Be wary of Servius Aurelius Santini, Clarinda...he’s alive. He’s the second, black-robed Hospitaller knight in your vision of Mimir’s Well.
Alex’s strategy for getting her away from his and Genevieve’s father worked perfectly.
“Excellent,” Clarinda said to all the remaining members of the family after the parents and retainers departed from Hagia Sophia. “That was well done, all of you.”
Alexander bowed deeply. “I don’t like deceiving Father with these plans, but we’re at your command, Mistress Trevisan.” He held out an arm and smiled. “Once we decided to help you, Father didn’t have a chance.”
Genevieve held up her leathern purse of coins. “I knew he’d give us a little spending money! Did you get some, too, Clare?”
“Hey,” one of the younger boys, Matthew, protested, “I didn’t get anything!”
“We’ll share with you, you ninny,” Genevieve said, putting her pouch into a hidden pocket on the side of her dress, “but run ahead and lead the way with your brother. Your elders have to talk.”
“Elders?” Alexius asked, looking around as if expecting someone to come across the relatively quiet gardens of Hagia Sophia. “Where? Oh, you mean you, Genie? At least Alexander has some —” He ducked Genevieve’s cuff at his head and ran to join his brother.
After a brief stop for a change of clothes at Alex’s military barracks near the Basilica Cistern, the large group set forth, intent on reaching the quays and dockyards of the Genoese Quarter.
As they walked, Clarinda reflected on the lengths that Alex was willing to go to help her find her father, but feared only that he might expect more than friendship in return.
Alexander was an enormous man, standing half a handspan above most people he met, heavily muscled, but of an athletic grace in his every movement that it was small wonder that he was one of the most sought-after bachelors in the seven-walled city. Indeed, he was as strapping and poised a young signore as any young signorina such as she could hope to find, but Clarinda simply had never felt the tug of romantic interest that had pulled him toward her since their first meeting as children.
Still, she knew he’d be a real catch for whatever woman he did wind up with. He’d just been promoted to the position of hoplitarch, which meant that he commanded a small division of the Byzantine army and received many benefits. She smiled, knowing there’d never be romance between them. He’d always be her best friend, nothing more, no matter what his station in life. Her childhood memories simply didn’t allow for the more mature roles that they were starting to each take in adulthood.
So even if Alex n
ow stared at her some ten years older, fully a heavily muscled man and veteran soldier with responsibilities she could only begin to imagine, he still looked at her with a face she’d seen at each stage of growth. The curious expression on his face, though, still used the same bright and intelligent hazel eyes that shamefacedly looked despairingly at her years ago during a family picnic near the Black Sea when he’d gotten bitten on the rear by two storks.
“What ?” Alex asked, discomfited by her look.
“Nothing.” Clarinda replied, glad for a happy memory when the evening’s events made the world seem a little darker than it’d been before the mass. “I’m just wondering if we all have to call you ‘Hoplitarch Stratioticus’ now that you’re a big, bad soldier and have your own command.”
“You might,” Alex said, “and, now that you mention it, I think we’ll make it mandatory for you, especially if that smile means you’re thinking about those darn storks again.” He looked thoughtfully at the ground. “Hoplitarch Stratioticus. Yes, I like the title. It’d sound very good coming from you, Clare.”
“Oh, please…” Clarinda said, rolling her eyes.
Genevieve turned to Clarinda as she fell into walking beside her friend and brother. “Now, Clare, this is really exciting. We’re going on a true adventure. Do you really mean to go through with this?”
“I do,” Clarinda smiled. “I know that Padre’s in trouble, and thanks to you all helping me, I think this is the best way to get to him.” She left unspoken that there was still much business to do before night’s end.
“It’s not fair,” Genie gave a false pout, “you get to have all the fun, going into the Genoese Quarter for a ‘secret meeting’ while I go the bazaar with those two brats ahead.”
“It’s not a secret anything, Genie — this is ship business, and other than your curiosity, there’s nothing happening except negotiations and signing contracts.”
“The meeting’s at a bar, Clare,” Genevieve said sarcastically, then smiled, “there doesn’t have to be anything going on, the place itself is busy with ‘distractions,’ if you know what I mean.”
“I thought you were engaged?” Alexander asked. “Shouldn’t you be studying nursing or practicing how to take care of senior citizens or something? Father told me that your fiancé is almost as wide now as he is tall, and four times your age.”
“Oh, please, not another judgment lecture from Saint Alex,” Genevieve groaned. “Live for the moment, why don’t you? You’d have me an old maid before starting my path. We can’t all climb the military ladder, you know.” She glared at her brother. “And, for the record, he’s three times my age.”
“Thanks for clearing that up — that makes it such a better image. Well, at least the social climbing I’ll be doing is from an upright posi—” Alex started to say, but Clarinda interrupted him.
“This isn’t your kind of tavern, Genie,” she said meaningfully to her friend. “Seriously. There’ll be cutthroats and brigands there, which is why Alex is coming with me.”
“I could still quietly sit at the bar,” Genevieve protested, although both Clarinda and Alexander knew from the tone in her voice that the image painted no longer held an appeal for her.
“Here,” Clarinda said, handing her the leather pouch full of coins. “Go to the bazaar after we change and have a good time with Matthew and little Alexius.”
Genevieve smiled, looking at the leather pouch in her hand.
“Come on, Genie,” Clarinda said, “put that away before we reach the Mese and enjoy a night on the town.”
Genie smiled. “I feel as if you two are gaming me as much as you did Father. But, if a night on the town and free shopping is manipulation, I’ll take the coins and run!”
Silence fell upon the small group as Constantinople darkened into full night. The street lamps on corners near the Adrianople Gate revealed some soldiers who saluted Alex as he passed. Tendrils of misty air steadily advanced, enshrouding in a gray mantle the Harbor of Eleutherion and then moving to capture Clarinda and her friends in its embrace.
Clarinda shivered. Alex noticed and lent her his short cloak. She accepted the kindness, but she wasn’t cold — she was afraid. The encounter in the basilica had disturbed her greatly, filled as it’d been with dire predictions from Urd and the fact that a name had finally been given to the second robed man of her dreams: Servius Aurelius Santini.
At the identification, Clarinda in a flash of awareness had understood the young man’s athleticism and comfortability with a sword. How could the hero of the Battle of Mecina be otherwise? The stories from Syria about that battle grew and regrew with each telling, adding mythical qualities to the essential fact that Santini had turned back Saladin’s army in one of the emir’s few defeats.
But, as with any good legend, the saga had ended with Santini and Saladin battling each other in personal combat. The Christian hero then lost his head in a glorious sacrifice that selflessly guaranteed the safe flight of the pilgrims, villagers, and Hospitaller brethren. The body of Servius Aurelius Santini burned afterwards in a funeral pyre that lit the skies around the military shrine for days.
And so on, and so on. God, she’d heard so many stories about the Battle of Mecina that the topic bored her! Her best friend, Pasquale, made the cleverest jibe one evening: he’d drunkenly asked a devout storyteller why he’d omitted from the Mecina story all the angelic choirs that must’ve been there singing as Santini was bodily raised into Heaven to take his seat somewhere between God, the Son, and Mother Mary.
In her mind’s eye, Clarinda saw the young man of her vision leaping across the pool.
She almost growled with frustration. The notion that her knight was that Santini simply was impossible. The man whom Urd called her Hospitaller was Clarinda’s own age, perhaps a year or two older, but five years ago at Mecina he would’ve been, what? thirteen? fourteen? Impossible to conceive that at such an age the young man had led the victorious Christian defense of Mecina.
Unimaginable! How could Clarinda ever love someone like that? Someone to whom violence was second-nature? To whom religion was something not to inspire and inform a life, but to justify killing anyone who wasn’t of the same belief?
She understood violence, and herself had learned to fight under Pasquale’s tutelage while on board the Maritina, but she’d never understand the religious fervor that set believers against unbelievers in wars that each side expected to yield some kind of approval from their respective God.
There was no resolving the dilemma, so Clarinda turned her face upward to the fog-laden air and tried to refresh herself while walking.
Logic and order. Primo, get our goods sold and underway. Secondo, find Padre in Caesarea. Terzo, deal with Servius Aurelius Santini if and when I ever meet him.
They reached the beginning of the dockyards where they needed to meet Pasquale.
“Alex,” Clarinda started to say, and then hesitated. She felt guilty and wanted to say something because she knew that if she let him come with her without explaining the Norn’s prophecy, she’d intentionally be sending Alexander a different signal than just friendship.
Gain your ship with the help of the Stratioticus children, and take the warrior-born, Alexander, with you.
Urd’s words thrummed in her ears as Alexander looked down at her, and the adoration in his eyes almost physically hurt her.
“Yes, Clarinda?”
“Niente …nothing,” she said.
At some point, she’d have to explain to him what had happened with Urd, but he was even more practical minded than her. She knew that he’d find the idea that she was training to be a Norn and destined to fall in love with a dead Hospitaller war-hero completely unbelievable.
“I may ask you later, but, for now, niente. Let’s go meet Pasquale. I want to get out of this city.”
Chapter 5
A Market Day, Interrupted
Back on the morning of Ibn-Khaldun’s arrival at the Krak — some four weeks in Clarinda’s
future — the Muslim scholar’s tone was urgent.
“I need to see Ríg immediately,” Ibn-Khaldun said to Pellion, his voice rising above the cacophonous sounds echoing toward them down the corridor.
The entry tunnel lay behind the great gate of the Krak des Chevaliers, lit by torches set into wrought-iron sconces. Two grassy fields ran expansively along the near embankment, opening onto the water of the moat so that the knights’ horses and livestock would be well fed and watered even during a siege.
Hundreds of people shuffled back and forth on the walkway, the noises of the weekly market day increasing in volume as Ghannen’s caravan made its way into the castle.
“Certainement,” Pellion replied, trying to keep pace with Ibn-Khaldun, Rebecca, and Jacob at the head of the group, and motioning for a page to assist him. “I believe Ríg’s in the infirmary. This lad will take all your bags, too.”
“No...,” Ibn-Khaldun demurred, even now hearing the hissing, sibilant whispers arising again from the thing in the saddlebag.
Nine songs magical sing I, goblet-sipped from Bestla’s mead….
“No, Pellion, I’ll carry this bag,” the elderly man finished with some effort, then nodded towards Rebecca and Jacob. “My guests here, however, will need a vacant pilgrim’s cell. Now, about Ríg. Is he hurt?”
“No, he isn’t injured, but tending to some knights who just returned from a mission.”
“I see. So, Brother Perdieu took Ríg from the library again, eh?”
Pellion’s smile showed even in the torchlight. “You guessed it. The duke thinks that Squire Ríg’s time would be better spent honing knightly skills than sharpening quills.”
“We’ll see about that,” Ibn-Khaldun said, sighing. “I suppose that the hospital is better than fencing in the practice yards.” He paused. “Were any of the mission’s party seriously injured?”
The Codex Lacrimae Page 6
