by Sheri Holman
“Pssst, listen.”
I swing right and almost collide with another Yellow Turban lurking in the shadows.
“You want Christian stuff? Don’t go to him. He’ll cheat you. Come to my brother.”
“I don’t want Christian stuff. I’m looking for an Greek translator who is staying on this street.”
“Come to my brother. We have Greeks there.”
Two women carrying baskets pass. I notice one’s kerchief has slipped from her forehead. She is bald.
“Come.”
He pulls me hard and the alley swallows us up. A white chicken flutters against my chest and flaps around us, chased by a young barefooted girl. I feel my arm yanked from its socket.
Yellow Turban leads me in a wide semicircle until we come back to the Street of the Quarter of the Jews, a few shops down from where he grabbed me initially. Just outside the doorway, a familiar-looking towheaded man leans against the shop, playing idly with his donkey’s tether. The beast in front of him is packed for a journey, saddled and loaded with a trunk on its rear end. Where have I seen this man before?
“Go in,” urges Yellow Turban, pushing me into the dark doorway. “Greeks.”
“Wait.” I pull away from the merchant and walk over to the waiting man. Dressed in somber pilgrim’s garb, he wears a coarse brown robe with belt, heavy black boots, a flimsy white chasuble stitched in what looks to have been great haste, from the crookedness of its red cross. He is clean-shaven and weaponless, but there can be no mistake. This waiting pilgrim is Abdullah the Mameluke.
“Abdullah?” I marvel.
He sees me and for an instant contemplates flight. Why on earth is he dressed this way? Certainly, if the Saracens discover it, he will be thrown in jail or even killed.
“Peter, please,” he says, cutting his eyes at the impatient Jew. “How are you, fellow pilgrim?”
“Fine,” I say. “What are you?”
The Mameluke throws his arm around my shoulder and leads me away from the shop door. From the open second-story windows above us, wide-eyed Jewish children, their mouths crusty with goat’s milk, their arms albino with dust, lean out and sing the word, “Biscuit!” I reach into my scrip to give them some bread, but Abdullah smacks their grasping hands away.
“I am battal, Friar,” the Mameluke says, checking to make certain the children are not spies. “Do you know what that means?”
I do not and say so, brothers.
“It means I disgraced the Mamelukes. I was caught enjoying myself like a Christian once too often and they dressed me down, exiled me to backwater Jerusalem, where I was to petition Allah’s forgiveness for the rest of my days.”
I have heard of these outcasts, brothers, though I did not remember the word. They are considered unclean by the Saracens and no longer live free lives. Some are penned up in stalls to meditate on their sins; some are merely followed wherever they go by stern Saracen priests who scowl them to an early grave.
“Ser Nic knew my status when he met me and offered me a way out,” he says. “I perform a few odd tasks for him, and he, in his turn, promises to take me home.”
I know very little about the Mameluke lifestyle, brothers, but I do know it is not possible to simply bid it farewell when it chafes. The Saracens take their Allah very seriously, and to insult him, as Abdullah seems bent on doing, is a capital offense.
“Peter, are you sure?” I ask. “Have you weighed the risks?”
“Do you know what it is like, living divided against yourself?” Abdullah asks. “When I came here as Peter Ber, God how I envied the Mamelukes, their fine horses, their rugs, their huge Damascus swords! I came with seven other Germans, all of whom dropped dead, one by one, of dysentery. What was stopping me from slipping into the East, Friar, from picking up one of those fine swords or stretching out on one of those gorgeous scratchy carpets? Only once I renounced Christ and became Abdullah, Slave to Allah, everything changed. Then I wanted only what I couldn’t have: ham and wine and hot Christian virgins.”
I remember Elphahallo’s words to me on the roof at Ramleh; he believed the only men in this world who were truly damned were those who lived an unfamiliar faith. Still, this Mameluke stands before me, ready to be welcomed back into the flock. The least I can do is bless him.
“You will have much to atone for.” I hug the new Peter Ber. “But you have made the right choice. Christ Jesus will welcome you, prodigal son, with open arms.”
“Great,” says the Mameluke, and looks away.
“Where is Ser Niccolo?” I ask, releasing my fellow pilgrim. It is time to get what I came for.
“He is inside with those grave robbers.” Peter fidgets. “I’ve been watching his stuff for an hour, and I’m getting thirsty.”
“Grave robbers?” I ask.
“You should see that place.” Peter snorts. “Full of legs and eyes and mummified cats and every other dead thing you can imagine. Christ,” he says, wiping his brow. “It’s really hot out here.”
Treachery comes easier and easier these days, brothers. I see my chance and take it.
“Why don’t you step off and get yourself something cool to drink, my friend?” I offer amiably. “I am happy to watch Ser Niccolo’s things until you get back.”
He looks at me uncertainly. “He’s very particular about them.”
“Who can he trust if not a priest?” I ask.
Peter Ber considers this briefly and nods agreement. With a brief look back to the donkey, he starts down the street.
“I’ll just pop into the tavern for one,” he reassures me. “Won’t be long.”
“Take your time.” I wave as he disappears down the alley.
A donkey and a trunk. My entire life comes down to this combination. She is a white donkey with big soulful mandorla eyes that seem almost to be encouraging me in the words of the Apostle Mark: “There is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.” This trunk upon my rump has obviously come abroad, she says. It is only right that its contents should be manifested.
I duck my head quickly into the relic shop’s back door and check for Ser Niccolo. This back room is well organized, if nothing else. The jar of Christ’s foreskins sits alphabetically next to the stack of girdles dropped from Heaven by the Virgin Mary. Boxes of fingers sit next to caskets of hands, and toes go with feet. I shudder at how these men make their living, preying on the gullibility of desperate Christians. Is Niccolo inside, right now, rummaging through the assorted paste reliquaries, looking for a set of Saint Katherine’s ruby lips? Suddenly a horrifying thought occurs to me, brothers. What if Niccolo is not here buying? What if he is here to sell?
A strange calm always descends upon me in moments of greatest sinfulness. The resolute hand of the murderer, the slow heartbeat of the thief, the liar’s cool head are all mine when the Devil’s work is to be done. With only a swift glance around to make certain I am not noticed, I walk back to the trunk and sink my pen deep into its cheap lock. I will not name names, but one among you may congratulate yourselves for my acquisition of this useful skill. It requires only a bit of jiggling before the shoddy lock drops open. The donkey’s skin twitches with horseflies, and her tail slaps my hand, shooing them away. She takes a short step backward, jarring the trunk from my grip.
Katherine, give me the strength to deal with whatever I find here. I fling open the lid.
The myrrh. You smell it first, brothers. The heady sandalwood, jasmine flowering of Heaven. A thin unguent of this scent oiled the empty reliquaries of Crete and Rhodes; a wispy column escaped the night of the storm when I threw open Arsinoë’s trunk, expecting to find it full of bones. It was this celestial perfume Niccolo was sniffing for when he plowed up Emelia Priuli’s bones on the beach of Joppa.
Ask your nose how something so pitiable can smell so sweet. Then ask your eyes to make sense of the jumbled hostage that is your beloved saint.
I spread open the burlap feed bag th
at once embraced the neck of drowning Arsinoë and find inside what must be a hundred pieces of Heaven. Narrow ribs comingle with a thigh and a wrist, recalling some ancient runic alphabet written all in sharp angles and joints. There is the left hand from Candia. Dear God, there, with no velvet to cushion it—clenched, in fact, between two bony toes—is the ear we lost on Rhodes. My hand goes instinctively to the money pouch next to my heart, where I have had to bunk her tongue in a bed of filthy lucre to keep it safe.
You were imprisoned in this trunk the night I slept on Contarini’s ship. You were bound and gagged, before that, in a waterlogged bag around Arsinoë’s neck. How many times I could have saved you, had I only known! Forgive me, dearest spouse. Forgive a foolish, wrong-headed, inflexible husband.
I gather the oily bones in my hands and bring them to my mouth. John once remarked that relics were only stolen for love or profit. Niccolo left her outside a relic shop, when he could have taken her inside and made a fortune. If he did not kidnap her for profit, what sort of ungodly love does he indulge for her?
“Abdullah, let’s go!”
A shout from inside the shop. I drop my beloved back into her bag and slam shut the trunk. With frantic, fumbling hands, I try to snap the lock back into place. I broke it with my pen.
“Friar?”
Ser Niccolo the Translator steps through the doorway as I pound the lock with my fist. The white donkey leaps forward at my violence, and the trunk slips precariously. I lunge to right it.
“What are you doing?” he yells, pulling me away from his ass. “Don’t touch that!”
“Some children tried to steal it,” I gasp, my voice breathless with fear. “Abdullah . . . I mean Peter . . . ran after them. That way.”
I point down the alley where the Mameluke disappeared and pray Niccolo does not decide to follow. He eyes me suspiciously, but says nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “It’s my fault, really. I distracted Peter. We were speaking of his conversion, when these children—”
Niccolo has noticed the lock won’t close. He turns on me angrily.
“The children I suppose picked this lock?”
“They had a stick,” I say weakly.
“What are you doing here, Friar?” the translator asks, not believing a word I say.
I haven’t thought that far ahead. What am I doing here?
“I was headed out to Aceldama when I found myself on your street. I thought I’d stop in and see if you’d join me for a bite to eat.”
“I am leaving the city tonight,” he says, opening the trunk wide enough to satisfy himself that nothing is missing. “I’m afraid this will have to be good-bye.”
“You are leaving already?” I ask. I have thought of no way to detain him. “You mustn’t leave Jerusalem without visiting the Holy Sepulchre. Come with us tonight.”
Niccolo shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Friar. If I miss my ride, I’ll be here another week.”
He bends over, tightening the saddle around his white donkey’s flanks, and repositions the trunk. Should I confront him here on the street and demand Katherine’s body? He will get away unless I can convince him he absolutely cannot go.
“Would it be so bad to stay here an extra week?” I ask with a smile. “We are planning a short trip to the River Jordan. You could come with us.”
“Actually, I’ve been extended an invitation by a lady friend,” he whispers conspiratorially. My stomach turns over. “You know women don’t like to be kept waiting.”
I laugh like a man who has not sworn a vow of chastity and grope for one final lie.
“Ser Niccolo ...” I hesitate, petting the donkey’s flat white head. There must be something, something he desires badly enough to turn aside from Sinai.
“Is something troubling you, Friar? Surely you can’t crave my company that badly?”
My voice comes to me from far away. “It’s just that I’ve been disingenuous with you, and now I’m embarrassed.”
He pats the donkey’s rump and straightens, tugging his tunic into place. “Yes?”
I can’t look at him, but absently comb the burrs from his donkey’s mane with my fingers. She whinnies and bumps my hand with her nose.
“The night of the fire,” I say slowly, “my friend John and I found something on your sister. Something that wasn’t consumed.”
“Yes?”
“It did not belong to a cow, nor do I think to a mere mortal. Your sister, Ser Niccolo, was in possession of Saint Katherine’s tongue, stolen from Cyprus.”
For the first time he looks upon me with something besides outright suspicion.
“When Contarini’s ship reached Cyprus”—he measures his words—“I learned Katherine’s tongue had been taken from a church in Nicosia. I was afraid it might be her.”
“We kept it safe until we could decide what to do with it. John wants to take it to Sinai and hand it over to the monks there, but I fear my patron will not let us go. I believe it should be returned to Nicosia, where it belongs.”
“I would be happy to return it for you, Friar,” Ser Niccolo offers, swinging onto his donkey. “I feel responsible for its theft in the first place.”
I breathe a loud sigh of relief. “How I hoped you would say that, Ser Niccolo! I know you will reach Cyprus before we will. I am so anxious to give it back.”
“Certainly. Do you have it?”
“John has it,” I say, a bit too quickly.
“Shall we go find him?”
“He’s gone off to Mount Olivet,” I say. “And I’m on my way to Aceldama. We are supposed to meet in the Sepulchre courtyard at dusk. Could you join us there?”
“At dusk?” I can see his desire war with his common sense. The caravan leaves at midnight, but if he wants her tongue, what choice does he have?
“If it will make you late, we can always return it ourselves,” I suggest.
“I don’t see why I couldn’t stop by on my way out of town,” Ser Niccolo says at last. “Wait for me in the courtyard. I’ll be there at dusk.”
I am sealing our appointment with a handshake when the tipsy Mameluke Peter Ber swings around the corner. He is lifting a bottle of small beer to his lips when he spots the translator and flings the bottle aside, smashing it against a Jewish door.
“Peter!” I cry nervously. “Did you catch those bad children?”
He has not been a crafty Saracen for nothing, brothers. Immediately he assumes I have told a lie.
“Yes, I did,” he shouts. “And stomped their necks.”
Ser Niccolo spits in disgust and spurs on his ass, leaving me coughing up fine red dust. He slaps the Mameluke painfully on the neck as he canters past.
“Let’s go, Abdullah,” he shouts over the ass’s hooves. “We have much still to do.”
The Mameluke trots resentfully after the translator, and I watch them disappear into the bowels of the Jewish quarter. I have much still to do before tonight as well, but first I must see what Niccolo purchased in this shop. I slip in through the back and startle the shopkeeper, who bears more than a striking resemblance to Yellow Turban, who brought me here. His turban is blue, however, and I realize to my surprise he must be a Converso.
“That man who just left.” I speak slow childlike Latin, hoping to make myself understood. “What did he buy?”
The shopkeeper nods his comprehension and takes me by the hand to the back of his counter. There in miniature jars and boxes he stores parts of the face: cloudy eyeballs rolling in vinegar, noses wrapped in cotton, teeth that have been stained with tea to falsely age them. Three tongues are lined up, nestled in brightly painted tortoise shells. In a tidy Latin hand, they are labeled Saint Lucy, Father Abraham, Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. He is about to walk past them.
“Wait.” I reach out and stop him. “These tongues. I know they are not real.”
He feigns insult in his Hebrew language, ordering me out of his store until he sees I prefer the tongues to be false. Then he smiles.
“Are they Christian? Saracen?” I ask. I need to know what poor soul had her grave disturbed and her tongue pulled out by the root.
The shopkeep chortles to himself. “Mamluk.” He snorts. “Who cares?”
I think about the open pits outside the city walls we saw on our approach to Jerusalem, the common burial apostate slaves are given in communal, rat-infested graves.
“I’ll take this one then,” I say, pointing to Queen Zenobia.
He wraps up the tongue in its tortoise shell and works out my total on a scrap of paper. Was Ser Niccolo honestly fooled by these laughably false relics? Does he so desire to collect Saint Katherine that he is willing to insert a corruption into her otherwise pure body?
“What did that man before me buy?” I ask again, distracting the merchant from his addition. Spread out before him on the counter are sheafs of paper stamped with what appear to be authentic papal seals. He sorts through purchasable Indulgences, Bulls, Dispensations for Marrying Nieces and Nephews, until he finds the paper Niccolo put his signature to. He turns it around to face me as he hands me my tongue.
Ser Niccolo, I read, purchased a hundred masses for his dead sister’s soul.
Relics
I find the story of the Donestre in Arsinoë’s hollowed little book, The Wonders of the East. The glue that held the pages together has loosened, and, toward the back, a few single leaves are free and readable. Before the light deserted me, I read of the Iron Gate errected by Alexander the Great at the edge of the Immense Desert, where the foothills of Paradise begin. He penned in the flesh-eating Dog Heads, the Sciapodes that hop on one foot, the unnatural Blemmies who wear their eyes in their chests, and all the other monsters who haunt the edges of maps. The Donestre, Ser Niccolo’s monsters, live on an island in the center of the Red Sea, where no barricade can contain them. They are the worst sort of monster, brothers, because even as they devour you they tell you what you want to hear.
It is too dark now, though, to read. The street traffic around the Sepulchre is thinning, Saracens head home to eat dinner on their roofs and watch the sun set. They walk so slowly, these Eastern men—time is no more than a shallow pleasant footbath to them. I see, through the slotted window in the thick-walled tower beside me, an old Saracen priest start up the steps. When the sun disappears and he announces the call to prayer, the Sepulchre guards will lock us in. Or out. I glance behind me. Only five pilgrims left in line.
