“No, but about those men, you should know that –” the rest of Pellion’s reply was lost as the Muslim scholar and his three companions emerged from the archway and into a flurry of activity. The castle dwellers appeared to be preparing for the siege while simultaneously tending to the daily needs of castle business, and on this particular occasion that meant conducting the weekly market day.
The lowing and bleating of the animals filled the early morning air of the outer ward. Two shepherds directed countless Nubian goats along the curtain wall toward the two open fields, while fine particles of dirt plumed in spirals around the shuffling feet of men and women who hastened to and fro.
The elderly man felt as if he’d been transported somehow onto the streets of a major metropolitan city, people shouting here and there in Arabic, French, and Hebrew. Two teams of donkeys brayed in frustration as they pulled wagons overladen with lengths of sawn and red acacia trees. A group of six women watched some laughing children play with wooden sticks in mock combat.
Across from the women, a dozen men in kaftans sat cross-legged in a semicircle, drinking warmed, saffron-flavored milk. Ibn-Khaldun smiled. Be there an army on the doorstep (or two!), these men were determined to start the morning as they had every other day of their lives: with a cup of the warmed drink that – along with a bit of conversation – served as a staple in this part of the world.
“We part here, my friend,” Ibn-Khaldun said to Pellion when they’d reached the portcullised gate opposite the market.
The boy looked distractedly behind him, and swallowed hard.
“What’s the matter with you, Pellion?” Ibn-Khaldun asked with a bit of irritation in his voice. “Why do you keep looking over your shoulders?”
“I don’t want anymore trouble with Brother Perdieu. I…had a bit of an accident last week,” Pellion said, unable to hide the flush creeping up his cheeks.
“I was mixing some inks and spilled water everywhere,” he continued. “We sopped up enough of it so that it didn’t reach anything important, but Ríg had to save me from Brother Jeremiah since he was spitting at me in anger — well, kind of drooling, really. He chased me around the library and would’ve gotten me if Ríg hadn’t thrown me out the front door and into the hallway.” Pellion sighed. “That’s when Brother Perdieu was walking past.”
“Ah, that explains your assignment to guard duty,” Ibn-Khaldun nodded, leaning on his staff. “And Jeremiah? You didn’t strain his heart did you?”
“Strain him ? What about us?” Pellion gave an abused look and muttered. “He hates us. I think it’s a strain for him just to walk into the scriptorium every morning and see the novitiates waiting for him. Always shakes his head, and says the same thing. Every day, the same thing: ‘You lot wouldn’t last a day in Camelot, but I suppose even Arthur had to start somewhere. Let’s see what you can do.’ Then he spends the rest of the morning and afternoon telling us everything we do wrong!”
Ibn-Khaldun smiled, glad to have these kind of scholastic distractions again.
Pellion finished, his voice toneless with dread, “If I ever get back to the library, you know that Brother Jeremiah’s going to be hovering over my shoulder watching my every move.”
“Now, now, Lad — don’t worry. After a week without you in the scriptorium, I’m sure Jeremiah will be more welcoming than threatening.” Ibn-Khaldun nodded at the portcullised gate. “You’d best return to watch, Pellion – of course, after you report all this to Arcadian.”
“Certainement, mon ami – I’ll do it immediately.” Pellion adjusted his grip on the camels’ reins but didn’t move.
“Eh bien, qu’est-ce que c’est ?” The schoolmaster urged. “Come along, Pellion — what now? We don’t have all day to wait for you to form a thought!”
“The expedition that returned this morning,” Pellion said quickly. “I’m sorry, but Marcus was among the injured.”
“Ah, I see,” the old man murmured, pausing momentarily. “Well, then. Yes.” Ibn-Khaldun’s voice suddenly warmed. “Farewell, and thank you, Pellion. It is so very good to see you again.”
Ibn-Khaldun turned to Rebecca and Jacob as Pellion and the page left with the camels.
“Come, come. We need to make haste.”
“Master Khaldun,” Jacob said, “you mentioned your apprentice, Ríg, before, but who’s Marcus?”
“Ah, yes – heard all that, did you? Well, you’ll meet both boys soon enough – as for Marcus, he’s not yet a knight, but he is my son.” Ibn-Khaldun paused. “Both Marcus and Brother Perdieu will have to explain why a squire was even on an expeditio into enemy territory to begin with. Now, really, come. The hospital and scriptorium are just ahead.”
Ibn-Khaldun led Rebecca and Jacob toward the corridor to the inner ward.
Marcus, if Allah wills it, be safe. He frowned at the worry pushing a knot into his stomach. I told you, Sara. We were blessed with enough children in Thaqib and Fatima, but you wanted to adopt another after the slaughter at Mecina. One more child to provide for. One more child to worry about. One more child to…love. Marcus! How fare you?
Ibn-Khaldun shifted the saddlebag to his other shoulder. The action did nothing to alleviate the sinister influence that burdened him again as he came into proximity of the hidden package. A whispered voice-that-was-not-a-voice came from the saddlebags, temptations uttered in a multitude of languages that echoed in his mind, unheard by woman and boy at his heels.
Nine songs magical sing I,
Goblet-sipped from Bestla’s mead,
Blood and honeyed runes
Will meet Last-Son’s need.
Ibn-Khaldun knew that the voice – whatever it was — made its appeal to the aspect of his personality that was ‘ulama, one of the teaching classes in Islam.
In spite of the temptations to power that lay within the sinister words, the old man successfully ignored the voice by focusing on a particular sura from the Koran that likened God to Light. The image was a soothing one for Ibn-Khaldun. Imagining the Light of Allah’s Lamp as they entered the shadows of another tunnel, he adjusted the strap of the saddlebags, and began telling Jacob some things about the castle’s design as they began the ascent up the corridor. His long journey was almost over.
Chapter 6
At the Tavern of the Wayfarer
In contrast to Ibn-Khaldun’s feeling of relief and dread at journey’s end, four weeks earlier Clarinda Trevisan thought that the quest to find her father might be over before it began.
She sat at a worn oak table in one of Constantinople’s most crowded and noisy taverns, Il Viandante (“The Wayfarer”), at the edge of the Harbor of the Golden Horn. Nearby, Alexander Stratioticus argued vehemently with Pasquale, the navigator of the Maritina. Pasquale shared responsibility for all decisions about the entire family fleet without Clarinda’s father, and it was Angelo Trevisan’s disappearance that fueled the current argument.
“We don’t have time for a ‘quick run’ up the Bosphorus,” Alex repeated, “and certainly not if it’s for making a deal with the likes of Kenezki and his friends.”
“The last time I checked, Alex,” Pasquale began, taking a sip from a tin-lined wooden goblet, “you hadn’t been left in charge of the Maritina.” He raised a bushy eyebrow at Clarinda. “Nor had you, Bambina. As I recall, your father told you to stay here while he’s gone.”
“Padre’s not just ‘gone’ — he’s in trouble, Pesci,” Clarinda asserted, calling him “fish” in Italian, an endearment she’d adopted at three years’ old when she couldn’t say his entire name.
She continued, checking the front entrance to the tavern. “You know as well as I do that he’s in trouble because of those cursed caskets. But, quickly now, before they return. Alex has a point — what was father doing dealing with someone like this Kenezki?”
“Kenezki’s not the only one to worry about,” Alex interjected. “Paolo Santini and Radulf of Thuringia are known here and in Venice for skirting the boundaries of legality. They’
re scoundrels and they’ve been implicated in everything from the Galata Fire that destroyed the Genoese Quarter ten years ago to poaching pheasants in the imperial preserve.”
“Children, children,” Pasquale said, leaning back so that the sizable bulk of his stomach didn’t press so firmly against the table. “Let’s not be so hasty in our judgments, eh? I myself am trying to keep the lines straight here, but it seems as if Angelo and Verrocchio cast many nets before we left. At least let me tug a little here and there on each line to see what’s what.”
He gave Clarinda a hard stare. “You’ve persuaded me to go to Caesarea, Little One, but we have five ships laden with cargo that need to be sold, commissioned, or — at the very least in the case of the glass, fritware, and spices — held over the winter so that we can sell the goods in the spring fairs in Scandinavia and Calais. Kenezki’s the best contact in the Italian Quarter for the northern countries. Should we throw all that away?”
“Of course, we shouldn’t, Pesci,” Clarinda said quietly, knowing the old merchant was correct. Her father would go berserk if they sold five ships’ worth of merchandise at fire-sale rates. “I’m just worried.”
Pasquale rested a reassuring hand on her forearm. “As am I. Let’s take each bridge as we come to it, eh? Hush, now — here they come.”
Three men pushed their way toward them through the people and tables in the tavern.
“Master Pasquale,” said Kenezki as he slipped onto the bench next to Clarinda and waved a hand at the other two men. “This is Paolo Santini and Radulf of Thuringia. They’re able to handle the kind of transaction we discussed earlier.”
Clarinda took stock of the newcomers, wary of any recommendations coming from Kenezki, a self-proclaimed pirate who’d earlier introduced himself with a kiss on her hand that lingered too long and subsequent winks that hoped for too much. She suspected him at an elemental level that she couldn’t explain.
A lean man, Kenezki’s swarthy features were framed by long hair bound into a ponytail with a thick leather thong. His narrow and cleft chin, thin eyebrows, and gaunt face imparted a hungry aspect to him. Most disconcerting, however, were an intaglio of tattoos that swept upward along both sides of his neck in black and crimson patterns of snakes, vipers, and dragons that obscured half of his face.
The pirate’s eyes seemed two glowing chips of coal, alit with a pulsing inner fire as the man took in the people gathered at the table. Clarinda kept averting her gaze whenever Kenezki looked her way; in spite of an innate repulsion to the man, she felt compelled to stare at him whenever his eyes caught hers.
Kenezki’s new companions weren’t any easier to tolerate — Clarinda had been in enough bars in her young life to recognize the types. Radulf of Thuringia lived up to his name, bearish in appearance with ermine pelts serving as a cloak across his back. The hides almost blended into the heavyset man’s broad, ruddy, and red-bearded face, and the ursine eyes that peered at the group from beneath bushy eyebrows were languidly predatory. Clarinda felt as if this man would as soon gut a person with his machete-like falchion sword as speak to him.
The last of the newcomers to the table, Paolo Santini, caught Clarinda completely by surprise. As he threaded his way confidently across the room with an assured and cocky gait, Clarinda noted the gold-bordered, indigo cloak of finest spun wool and vermilion silken shirt.
The most startling observation, though, was the resemblance that Paolo Santini bore to the black-robed Hospitaller knight from her dream visions.
When Paolo walked into the tavern with Kenezki and Radulf, Clarinda thought him the young man from her dreams come to life, albeit this version appeared to be a hand-span shorter and stouter in size than Servius Aurelius Santini. Because of this similarity, she couldn’t stop peeking at him as the group fell to serious conversation.
“So, ‘Hoplitarch’ Stratioticus, is it now, Alexander?” Paolo greeted Alex with disarming friendliness. “Congratulations on the promotion — moving right up the cursus honorum, aren’t you?” He doffed the expensive cloak casually over the chair. “How’ve you been? It’s been awhile.”
Alex leaned back, his hand visibly resting on the hilt of his sword. “Santini. I thought we saw the last of you at Chios. By the light of plague fires, wasn’t it?”
Paolo bowed at the gibe. “I still think you mistake me for someone else, but think what you will. I assure you, our business tonight is legitimate.”
Alex’s smile faded. “I hope it is. The empire’s reach is focused now on the Bosphorus and points northward and eastward. Fewer ports will let you trade if word spreads otherwise —”
“Fellows. Gentlemen, that’s enough.” Kenezki interrupted, apparently thinking that the moment warranted a grab at Clarinda’s bare forearm that rested on the table as she toyed with the base of a goblet in front of her. The Venetian girl withdrew from the contact upon feeling it, noticing the wiry strength in his grip.
“We have current business to discuss and,” Kenezki said, giving a wink at Clarinda, “Hoplitarch Stratioticus, as head of the imperial guard for this precinct, you know that Signore Santini and I are merchants fully licensed with a variety of guilds here.”
“A good point. I’ll see you’re papers then before continuing, Kenezki,” Alex said calmly. “You’ve been running everything from Armenian slaves to silkworms since I’ve known you, and it’s going to take more than a couple of years of ‘legitimate’ dealing—”
“Was ist das ? Seid ihr alle Witze ?” roared Radulf, shaking his fur cloak off his shoulders and revealing a leather jerkin and breastplate. The man seemed ready for war. Instead of his sword, though, he grabbed the waist of the approaching barmaid and swung her onto his lap. “A round of ale for the table, Fraulein, and, besides your beautiful self,” he leered with a tickle of his stubby fingers that made the woman squirm instead of laugh, “what meat is hot and fresh around here?”
Although Clarinda groaned inwardly at the German’s words, she was strangely grateful for the boisterous interruption. She’d grown up among sailors, and — unlike the cunning she sensed in Santini and Kenezki — Radulf was an immediately recognizable sort! Alex, too, seemed to take the moment to recall why they were there, and gave a slight shrug. It was his sign that he was going to relent on his official duties and let everyone get to work.
“You still serve a decent octopus casserole here, don’t you?” Kenezki asked the barmaid, after the woman pushed herself off the bawdily laughing Radulf.
When the young woman raised her hand to strike the man’s face, though, he gripped her wrist and gave it a slight pull, “tsk-tsking” her as he yanked her to him for a kiss full on the lips. She yanked away again and moved quickly out of the man’s reach, standing next to Kenezki with flushed face as the pirate continued to order as if nothing had occurred.
“We’ll take three of those, some lakerda, and a few capons.” He leaned conspiratorially toward Clarinda, whispering with wine-laden breath, “We’ll avoid the vegetable stew, eh, Young One? Not quite sure what they’ll toss in it in a place like this, nor how old it is?”
“My parents own this place,” the barmaid protested, hearing the pirate’s words. “And, it’s not vegetable stew, but clam chowder. The freshest this side of the Golden Horn.”
Clarinda took the hint. “I’ll take a bowl of that, please.”
The barmaid nodded with a brief, appreciative smile. “You won’t be disappointed,” she said, and then rolled her eyes at the Thuringian who spoke with Paolo across the table.
Clarinda thanked her again after Alex and Pasquale ordered the same clam chowder, willing to take any bet that more than octopi tentacles were going to be mixed into Radulf’s casserole.
“So, Hoplitarch,” the Thuringian’s voice boomed, “do we pass parchments and proofs around the table, or do we get to business?”
Alex shrugged in response. “I’m here for Mistress Clarinda and Master Pasquale. If they need to deal with you,” his steady gaze swept across all the men
gathered at the table, “they’ll at least have some assurance that the Byzantine authorities back their endeavors. My presence can serve in lieu of papers.”
He looked directly into the bearish man’s face, switching from Greek to German, with a harsh change in tone that frightened even Clarinda in the severity of its delivery. “I fought in the Caspian campaigns two years ago, Herr Radulf. If you’re one of those who ran when the Five Brigades finally arrived, you can also be assured that there’s no statute of limitations on murder here.”
Radulf said nothing in response to his words, nor did he avert his eyes from Alex’s glare.
Pasquale broke the tension by slapping Alex’s back lightly. “Well, I’m glad that we’ve settled all that!”
Alex rose from the table and looked at Clarinda while resting a hand upon Pasquale’s shoulder. “Very well. I’ll be back shortly. I need to tend to something.”
“I’d guess that he’s going to order some soldiers to block the front and rear doors.” Paolo murmured as he glanced at Kenezki and Radulf, before focusing on Pasquale. “If we’re still going to talk under these wonderful conditions, we ought to get to it.”
“It’s very simple,” Pasquale replied, “of our five, we have two fully laden ships that need goods off-loaded and transported to Kiev before the winter season. Kenezki’s told you about the merchandise?”
“Si,” Paolo nodded, “amber and glass spindle whorls from Murano, and glasswares that are hard to come by in the northern countries?”
“And Egyptian fritware,” Pasquale added. “Angelo’s plan had been to deliver them to Chersonosos while he went to the Levant, but I need to now go to Caesarea myself and so need the liaison work.”
“There were spices, also, weren’t there?” Radulf clarified, looking hard at Kenezki before returning attention to Pasquale. “If I’m going to commission and protect these things for the overland journey — and especially waiting out a winter in Russia — there will be additional costs, you understand.”
The Codex Lacrimae Page 7
