The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

a jewel-bright[41] paint. Wrapped in linen at one end of the box were her quill pens, brushes, and charcoal sticks.

As always, the sight of her materials made her want to stop what she was doing and paint. She closed the lid gently, stroking its cover, remembering the merchant from Soldaia in the Crimea who had sold her the box outside the Church of Saint John in Stoudion, telling her it came from a land far to the east called Cathay.

The Cathayans must be as civilized as we are to make such a thing, she thought as she put the box in her chest.

This blond Saracen—this Mameluke—whom she had seen briefly and would meet again tomorrow, would not be a civilized man. He was both Turk and Frank—barbarity coupled with barbarity.

"Kriste eleison!" she whispered. "Christ have mercy." Until this moment she had been able to stave off her fear of the danger she was going into. Now it struck her full force, leaving her paralyzed over her traveling chest, her trembling hand still resting on her box of paints as if it were a talisman that could protect her.

She was going among the worst enemies her people had on earth, more to be feared than the Saracens—the Latin Christians of the West. The floor seemed to shake under her, and her body went cold and then hot as she thought of what she must face. If they found out that she was a woman of Constantinople, they would tear the flesh from her bones.

A woman of Constantinople helping a Saracen to plot against the pope!

Fear was like a cold, black ocean, and she was drowning in it. She dared not even let herself imagine the horrors, the torments that would end her life if those people in Orvieto found her out.

She did not have to go through with it. Once she and Lorenzo and this David—this Mameluke—were on the road, she could slip away. Manfred had said they would be carrying jewels. Perhaps she could take some, use them to buy passage for herself.

Passage to where?

There was no place in the world she belonged but Constantinople. And her place in the Polis was dependent on the basileus, Michael. If she angered Manfred, she could not dare go back to Michael.

To be forever exiled from Constantinople would be a living death.

In her mind she saw the Polis, glowing golden at the edge of the sea. She saw the great gray walls that had protected Constantinople against barbarian invaders from East and West for a thousand years.[42] She saw the gorgeous pink marble of the Blachernae Palace of the Basileus, the statue of Justinian astride his horse, his hand raised toward the East, the great dome of Hagia Sophia, her namesake saint, that seemed to float over the city, held in place by an army of angels. She heard the roar of the crowd watching chariots race in the Hippodrome and the cries of the merchants from their shops along the arcaded Mese. The Polis was the hub of the world, the fulfillment of all desires.

The vision sent strength and purpose surging through her body, and she straightened up, took her hand from the paint box, and began moving around the room again, collecting her possessions.

She would go with Lorenzo and the Mameluke and do, as she had always done, whatever was necessary. She would see this thing through. With the help of God, she might prevail.

And after that?

What future for a woman as alone as Sophia Karaiannides?

She shrugged. Time enough to think about the future after she had been to Orvieto and lived through it.

Of one thing she was already sure. She would not come back to Manfred.

She went back to her table. From a reading stand at its side she picked up her leather-bound book of parchment sheets and opened it to a page marked by a ribbon. She studied the portrait of Manfred she had begun only two days before. Most of it was still rough charcoal strokes, but she had colored his beard in a mixture of yellow and white paints, because it was the most important color and she wanted to get it down first so it could control her choice of the other colors. The eyes would be last, because when she painted in the eyes the picture would, in a sense, come to life.

Even with the eyes blank the portrait seemed to smile at her, and she felt a ripple of remembered pleasure. Grief followed almost at once.

Shall I try to finish this tonight and give it to him as a parting gift?

After a moment's thought her fingers clawed at the parchment and tore it free of the stitches that held it in the book. She rolled it up and held an end to a candle flame.

[43]

V

Keeping his face severe, Simon de Gobignon walked slowly past the six knights lined up on the wharf. The men's faces were scarlet and glistening with sweat under their conical steel helmets. Simon felt rivulets running down his own back, under his padded cotton undershirt, mail hauberk, and surcoat.

Gulls screamed overhead, and the smell of the salt sea and of rotting fish hung heavy in the warm air.

Venice in July, Simon thought, was no place to be dressed in full battle gear.

The two banners held by men-at-arms at the end of the line hung limply: the royal standard of France, gold fleurs-de-lis on an azure ground, and that of Gobignon, gold crowns on purple.

Simon reproached himself. He had brought his company down to the waterfront too early, as soon as he had word that the galley bearing the Tartar ambassadors from Cyprus was in the harbor. It was there, sure enough; he could see it, a long, dark shape a few hundred feet from shore. But it rode at anchor while officials of the Most Serene Republic inspected it for diseases and registered its cargo, a task that had already taken hours while Simon and his men sweltered onshore.

Behind the knights stood a lance of archers, forty men in four rows. They were talking and laughing among themselves in the Venetian dialect, which Simon could barely understand. While growing up he had learned the speech of Sicily, but that was nearly a different language.

The crossbowmen should not be chattering, Simon thought. It was unmilitary. Besides, it irritated him and added to the tension of this endless waiting.

He took a step back and shouted, "Silencio!" The archers looked up, and he saw more surprise and annoyance than respect in their faces. Some eyed him expectantly, as if they thought him about to[44] make a speech. He glared at the archers for what he felt was a suitable interval, then turned away and walked out to the edge of the jetty, his thumbs hooked in his sword belt. He ignored the muttering that arose the moment he turned his back.

"Scusi, Your Signory," said a rasping voice at his elbow. Simon turned.

Andrea Sordello, capitano of the archers, smiled broadly at him, revealing a gap where one of his eye teeth should have been. The bridge of his nose was smashed flat.

"What is it, Sordello?" The capitano had met him in Venice with a letter of recommendation from Count Charles d'Anjou, brother of King Louis of France, but a not-quite-hidden insolence in the manner of this bravo made Simon uneasy.

"If Your Signory wishes to command the crossbowmen, perhaps it would be better to transmit your orders through me. The men do not understand why you silenced them just now. They are not used to being told to stand like statues for no reason."

And you would like to make yourself popular with them by disputing my order, would you not?

"Tell them they have entered the service of the kingdom of France," he told Sordello. "It is customary for French soldiers to maintain a military bearing and discipline."

"Forgive me, Your Signory, but that may offend them."

"It is not my duty to tell them what they want to hear but what they must hear," said Simon. Rather well put, he thought to himself.

"Sì, Your Signory." Sordello walked away. He had a slight limp, Simon noticed. The man had certainly been battered. Even so, Uncle Charles's letter said he was a fine troubadour. Or trovatore, as they called them in Italy.

"Monseigneur!" A shout broke in on his thoughts. Alain de Pirenne, his closest friend among the six Gobignon knights he had brought with him, was pointing out at the harbor. The two rows of oars on either side of the long-delayed galley were in motion. Even at this distance Simon could hear the drumbeat and the overseer calling count. Simon had heard songs comparing the oars of galleys to the wings of birds, and he could see the resemblance as the rows of oars, looking delicate as feathers from this distance, rose and fell over the water in unison.

"Thank heaven," said Simon.[45]

"Indeed," said Alain. "I am starting to feel more like a baked pigeon than a man."

As the galley swung in to the wharf, ropes flying through the air to make her fast to shore, Simon heard a sudden outcry behind him and jerked his head around.

"Make way for the most serene! Make way for the doge!" runners shouted. Musicians blowing oliphants, cranking hurdy-gurdies, and pounding on drums led a bright procession along the wharves. Two men in knee-length scarlet tunics stiff with gold braid held poles between which swung a huge banner. On the banner a winged lion in gold strode across a green background. Simon saw rows of gleaming helmets and naked swords held upright, followed by ranks of men in glittering brocaded robes, emerald and silver, maroon and gold. Towering over all was a huge sedan chair with a gilded roof and cloth of gold curtains, followed by a troop of men with tall spears. A crowd of men and women in bright silk tunics and satin gowns, laughing and chattering, brought up the rear.

A man in an ankle-length gown, his cap heavy with gold thread, confronted Simon. He was, Simon recalled, a camerlengo who had been present two weeks before when he had his brief audience with the doge and presented his charter from King Louis.

"Count, your troops are occupying the place needed by the doge, that he may properly greet our guests. Move them, if you please." The "if you please" was uttered in a tone so perfunctory as to be almost insulting. Simon's face burned and his muscles tensed, but when the ruler of Venice demanded that he give way, he was in no position to quarrel. He bowed curtly and turned to order his men to vacate the wharf.

And so, after waiting for hours, Simon suddenly found himself watching the arrival of the ambassadors from behind ranks of Venetian archers far more smartly turned out than his own mercenaries.

Why, Simon wondered, had the doge not made a place for him in this welcoming ceremony? The slight made him feel angry at himself as much as at the doge.

It is me. Uncle Charles should have sent an older man, more able to command respect.

First to come down the boarding ramp of the galley from Cyprus was a friar in a brown robe with a white cord wrapped around his waist. The crown of his scalp was shaved, and his beard was long[46] and white. He threw himself on the ground and kissed it with a loud smacking sound. He rose and bowed to the doge's sedan chair.

The doge of Venice, Rainerio Zeno, emerged through curtains held for him by two equerries in purple. Zeno was a very old, toothless man whose black eyes glittered like a raven's. His bald head was covered by a white cap bordered with pearls. His gold-embroidered mantle looked stiff and hard as the shell of a beetle. Pages stood on either side of him, and he leaned heavily on their shoulders, using them as crutches. The friar bent and kissed Zeno's ring.

Simon could not hear what the doge and the friar said to each other. The friar gestured toward the ship. Armed men—Simon counted ten of them—tramped down the boarding ramp and formed two lines leading to the doge. They were short and swarthy, wearing red and black breastplates of lacquered leather and round steel helmets polished to a dazzling finish, topped with spikes. Bows were slung crosswise over their shoulders, and long, curved swords hung from their belts. Were these Tartars, he wondered.

Their swords looked very much like the one Simon wore. Simon's was an Egyptian scimitar, one of his most precious possessions, not because of its jeweled hilt—a pearl set just behind the guard, a ruby at the end of the hilt, and a row of smaller precious stones all along the grip—but because of the one who had given it to