by D. N. Carter
“Would you give Arri an armed crossbow?” Kratos asked, standing behind Paul.
Paul flung around to see Kratos stood before him, smiling.
“Of course I would not,” Paul answered, surprised to see him, and frowned, puzzled.
“Then understand that you cannot give mankind items ahead of their time for they will use them against themselves. Trust me on this for it has happened before…a long time ago.”
“I do not even know where I am or if you are even real,” Paul remarked.
Kratos stepped forwards and suddenly and without warning smacked Paul across his arm hard with his staff. Paul flinched and rubbed his arm.
“Was that real enough?” Kratos asked, laughing. “All you need do is learn what is hidden and encode it so that future generations will recognise it… but for only then. Not beforehand, as I keep telling you.”
“Why can you not simply tell me what and where?” Paul pleaded.
“Where is the fun and excitement in that?” Kratos joked. Paul shook his head, utterly confused. “Paul, in all seriousness, there are great halls of knowledge and wisdom hidden by our ancestors. You know this already. We put in place codes within religions as we knew those very strong emotions, that deep religious impulse would guarantee it was carried across time intact. But alas, much has been removed, altered or misinterpreted by those who serve themselves, and now we risk those codes never being understood or revealed. If we appear and explain them, it negates the whole point of free agency and choice but also, as is always the way, we would be put up as gods ourselves,” Kratos explained and paused as the three women moved to stand around Paul in a circle. “That happened before with disastrous consequences, and despite the human soul being immortal once created, it very nearly caused all to be trapped within the limited learning bounds of your physical world to continually repeat life after miserable life in suffering and ignorance.”
“Oh so not much pressure upon me then,” Paul half joked.
“No,” Kratos smiled and placed his hand upon Paul’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Now you must return…but do not forget.”
As Kratos’s words echoed through his head, he caught a brief glimpse of another young woman, the same young woman he had seen before who had looked so intently in his eyes the last time he had seen the three women together. His eyes became very heavy and he could not keep them open just as the three women encircled him and joined their arms together embracing Paul in the middle of them.
“Paul,” Alisha said softly as she lay down beside him.
The moon had moved across the night sky and sat low on the horizon as Paul stirred and opened his eyes. Alisha smiled at him, picked up the sword from off of his chest and gently placed it on the floor beside the bed. She rolled over on top of him and just looked at him. In the moonlight Paul could see her eyes were wide and full of emotion. She looked at him and wanted to ask him a thousand questions. Her heart beat faster and Paul could feel it as she pressed against his chest. Slowly she moved her hips, then kissed him. She quickly sat up straight, her legs straddling his waist and lifted up her single silk night gown and pulled it off over her head. She placed her hands upon his shoulders and smiled at him, her breasts highlighted by the moonlight.
“You were already aroused,” she whispered as she reached down and felt Paul and without waiting gently guided him straight inside her. She closed her eyes and shuddered with delight as she felt him ease in and Paul’s body pulsed with an almost overpowering sensation as her warmth enveloped him.
He stroked his hands up and down her thighs and then her hips as she very gently moved on him. She rested her arms back behind her and looked up, her eyes still shut. Paul ran his finger down her neck, across her collar bone and down between her breasts. Her skin felt cool, almost cold. He lifted his own night shirt up and pulled it off quickly. Alisha stopped moving and looked at him as he sat himself up putting his hands behind her back to support her as he pulled her close, their naked bodies pressing against each other. She stopped moving altogether and just stared at him trying to look deep into his eyes. ‘What horrors has he seen…is he now different… how and why did he bring Nicholas here?’ she asked herself. Her heart felt as if it had been wrung out like a wet flannel. She moved slightly as she sensed Paul inside her coming in pulsating throbs despite no visible sign on Paul’s face of the physical release.
“You are coming, my love,” she whispered and smiled, resting her forehead against his.
“No, I cannot be,” Paul whispered back and tried to sit up further, looking surprised.
“Sssh…do not move…just, just stay as you are. Please.”
Paul let out a slight laugh just as Alisha kissed him very softly on the lips. She then kissed his forehead and pulled him close against her chest and simply held him. Paul pulled her as close as he could, running his hands up and down her back.
“But I have not pleasured you,” he whispered.
“Oh you have…you have,” she replied and kissed his neck then held him again. “Please honour your promise and never leave us again…for my heart would not stand that again,” she whispered and pulled his head back to look him in the eyes. She frowned as she waited for his response. “When, when I was told you were missing presumed dead…I felt a part of me die inside. ’Twas a pain I could not quell or hide from, so please, please…,” Alisha explained emotionally, her eyes glistening in the moonlight.
“I swear it…,” Paul replied, choked, and hugged her even tighter.
They both sat hugging each other gently rocking for over an hour, connected physically, emotionally and mentally experiencing a closeness on a level they had never shared before. Eventually they lay down and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Just before sunrise, Paul awoke hearing a female voice calling his name. Half asleep he could see the interior of the cathedral that he and Alisha had dreamt of together. This time the walls were all clean and brand new.
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“From the old will come the new…the old will not end, just change and become as new,” the female voice spoke just as he saw the image of the young woman he had seen with the three females and Kratos. She walked towards him, smiling, tilted her head slightly and smiled beautifully at him. As he moved to sit up, all the imagery of the cathedral vanished and he saw only her. Quickly he shook Alisha to wake up but she did not move. The young woman, now surrounded by light, smiled again then seemed to vanish into a ball of yellow golden light. It hovered for a few moments, moved across the room, then to the ceiling before suddenly dropping down fast and disappearing into Alisha. She moved very slightly and rubbed her hand over her stomach.
“Ali…Ali, wake up,” Paul whispered and gently rocked her. “Ali, please.” Alisha turned and faced him, rubbing her eyes, tired. She looked at him puzzled as he looked at her smiling broadly. “My dear Ali…you are now with child…and it is a girl,” he just blurted out.
“Okay. Yes my dear,” Alisha replied, still half asleep, and simply turned back over onto her side.
Paul watched her, unable to contain the sense of joy and knowing he felt. He put his arm around Alisha and tucked himself in close against her, kissed her shoulder tenderly and thanked the Lord for getting him home. He knew without a shadow of doubt she was now with child.
Port of La Rochelle, France, Melissae Inn, spring 1191
“Pregnant!” Sarah said loudly.
“I wish to learn more of what Kratos said about souls being immortal,” Gabirol remarked.
“Does that not imply reincarnation…a doctrine the Church does not agree upon?” Peter asked.
“In answer, yes, Sarah, Alisha was indeed pregnant, and yes it does imply reincarnation. And maybe the Church shies away from it, even though it is mentioned in the good book itself,” the old man answered.
“It is…where?” Peter asked instantly.
“’Tis a massive discussion which we do not have time to cover now but I can briefly inform you of just a f
ew details for you will have the time later to seek out and find such information for yourselves,” the old man replied.
“Yes pray tell, inform us,” the farrier interrupted.
“Even the briefest look demonstrates the Bible has in it the doctrine of reincarnation. Keep in mind that the writers of the biblical books were Jews with few exceptions, and that the founder of Christianity, Jesus, was himself a Jew. Jews in his time believed in reincarnation and the belief and theory of reincarnation was very old at the time, and the Old Testament books show this to be so. Proverbs gives the doctrine where Solomon said he was with the Creator from the beginning and that then his, Solomon’s, delights were with the sons of men and in the habitable parts of the earth. This disposes of the explanation that he meant he existed in the foreknowledge of the Creator, by the use of the sentences detailing his life on the earth and with men. Also Elias and many other famous men were to actually return, and all the people were from time to time expecting them. Adam was held to have reincarnated to carry on the work he began so badly, and Seth, Moses and others were reincarnated as different great persons of subsequent epochs. In the Orient, they have always held the doctrine of the rebirth of mortals. Unfortunately what Jesus said does not agree with the present view of the Church,” the old man explained, when Gabirol interrupted him.
“So you are saying then that the Church view must be given up or it, and by consent us following it, will be guilty of doubting the very wisdom of Jesus himself? he asked.
“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. But read it for yourselves in the Bible. This, indeed, is the real position of the Church, for it has promulgated dogmas and condemned doctrines wholly without any authority that Jesus held himself,” the old man replied.
“Can you give an example?” Ayleth asked.
“Yes. Take for example when a man blind from birth was brought before Jesus. The disciples wondered why he had thus been punished by the Almighty, and asked Jesus whether the man was born blind for some sin he had committed before, or one done by his parents. The question was put by them with the doctrine of reincarnation fully accepted, for it is obvious the man must have lived before, in their estimation, in order to have done sin before being born, for which he was then punished. If the doctrine was wrong as the Church declares then surely Jesus must have known it to be wrong and he would have corrected his disciples’ misunderstanding or denied the whole theory, but he did not. Also, when John the Baptist, who ordained Jesus to his ministry, was killed by the ruler of the country, the news was brought to Jesus, and he then distinctly affirmed the doctrine of reincarnation and the old ideas in relation to the return to earth of the prophets by saying that the ruler had killed John not knowing that he, John, was Elias ‘who was for to come’.” [90]
“So you are saying that the Bible actually says that John was Elias?” Simon asked.
“Yes, yes it does. Plus, when the disciples talked about the coming of a messenger before Jesus himself, they did not understand, and said that Elias was to come first as the messenger, and Jesus distinctly replied that Elias had come already in the person called John the Baptist. This time, if any, was the time for Jesus to condemn the doctrine, but, on the contrary, he boldly asserts it and man’s real immortal nature.”
“’Tis rather a massive difference of doctrine is it not?” the Templar asked.
“It is. Why do you think the Church does not like people to be able to read in Latin other than priests? People would start asking awkward questions,” the old man replied and raised his eyebrows and paused. “The Church has cursed the doctrine he taught. But you will each have to study and ask yourselves who is right.”
“If I understand fully what you are saying, and all that you have said so far in this tale, then all of us, our souls at least, are immortal once created…and that if the doctrine be taught that Jesus believed, then all men are immediately put on an equal basis…which means the power of the human rulers of heaven and earth is at once weakened,” Gabirol commented.
“And if that happened, would not chaos reign as there would be no leadership?” Peter remarked quizzically.
“How many times have I heard that argument? No it would not if rulers ruled by mutual consent…but that is another subject I am afraid we cannot cover. In the Bible, the Almighty declared that the man who overcame should ‘go out no more’ from heaven. Saint Paul also gives the theory of reincarnation in his epistles where he refers to the cases of Jacob and Esau, saying that the Lord loved the one and hated the other before they were born. It is obvious that the Lord cannot love or hate a non-existing thing, and that this means that Jacob and Esau had been in their former lives respectively good and bad and therefore the Lord loved the one and hated the other before their birth as the men known as Jacob and Esau. And Paul was here speaking of the same event that the older prophet Malachi spoke of in strict adherence to the prevalent idea. Following Paul and the disciples came the early fathers of the Church, and many of them taught the same. Origen was the greatest of them. He gave the doctrine specifically, and it was because of the influence of his ideas that the Council of Constantinople five hundred years after Jesus saw fit to condemn the whole thing as pernicious. This condemnation worked because the fathers were ignorant men, most of them Gentiles who did not care for old doctrines and, indeed, hated them. So it fell out of the public teaching and was at last lost to the Western world. But it must revive, for it is one of the founder’s own beliefs, and as it gives a permanent and forceful basis for ethics it is really the most important of all the doctrines that has to be remembered for then, and only then will mankind again act and follow a path based upon the code of one’s true heart,” the old man sighed.[91]
“That is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I have heard you mention that saying, the code of the heart. Is this something we should make note of?” Gabirol asked.
“’Tis the only way to act and the only code that should be followed,” the old man answered.
“But what if an evil man knows in his heart what he is doing is wrong, but still does a bad thing?” the Genoese sailor asked.
“Even the most evil are still children of the Lord, whatever you choose to call him, and all of us can sense, even when a person has not been told or taught what is right and wrong, and still know within themselves what is right and wrong from the heart…’tis the heart’s code. Learn to recognise it and listen to it and you will not usually go far wrong,” the old man answered.
Ayleth sighed and smiled at him and placed her hands across her chest.
“I like the sound of this heart’s code,” she said quietly.
“So this young female Paul saw who then entered Alisha as a ball of light. Are you telling us that her soul is what became the child when she fell pregnant?” Gabirol asked.
“Unequivocally yes, and so it was that Alisha fell pregnant,” the old man smiled.
“And that is why Paul acts, acted, as he did…following what he thought was the right thing to do as his heart told him?” Simon asked.
The old man simply nodded yes in silence.
Chapter 56
Home of the Brotherhood
Egypt, April 13th 1183
The late evening air was cool whilst Paul sat alone at the main dining table in silence running his fingers over the leather scabbard Arri had made for him. After a few minutes, Thomas entered through the side entrance door laughing with Attar and Theodoric.
“Oh sorry, Paul, I did not realise you were in here. Look, look who has decided to grace us with his presence,” Thomas explained still laughing as he half dragged Attar in.
Paul stood up and was surprised to see Attar looking so aged just as he had appeared the first time they had met. Back then he was bedraggled, filthy and looked gaunt after his ordeal. Quickly Paul pushed thoughts of that first encounter out of his mind as memories of it still sent a cold shudder down Paul’s back, the image of the Templar being beheaded flashing through his mind again. Alisha was upstairs with
Nicholas trying to get him to drink more threefold water Theodoric had made.
“Assalamu Allakham,” Attar said with open arms to greet him.
“Wa Allakham Assalam,” Paul replied and gestured for him to come in. “Attar…is all well with you?” Paul asked, bowing his head slightly, and then offered him a chair to sit on.
“I am well and all the better for confirming with my own eyes that you are alive and well yourself. Word had travelled you were dead. As for me, I just need some hair dye and a few days to recover from my journey…if you will allow me to stay a short while?” Attar explained and asked as he leaned against the back of the chair smiling as he pulled forward a handful of his grey, almost white hair.
“Of course, of course, please sit,” Paul answered as Theodoric pulled up a chair opposite Attar.
All turned to look at Upside as he slowly entered the dining hall. Hesitantly he looked at Attar for a minute then Paul.
“Sorry. I heard talking and I cannot sleep, so I thought I would join you,” Upside explained and pulled out the chair nearest to him.
“I shall fetch us all a drink,” Thomas said just as Sister Lucy entered.
“No you don’t. Sit yourself down and I will do that,” she ordered and winked at Theodoric.
“Theo, I saw that old woman hanging about outside again earlier, the one you warned us to keep an eye out for,” Thomas said as he sat down moving his sword to his side carefully.
“Really…did she say anything?” Theodoric asked as he looked at Sister Lucy.
“No…just smiled and walked off again as usual. She gives me the creeps,” Thomas replied.
“She saved my life…,” Theodoric said quietly.
“Why does she still linger…and here in Cairo now?” Paul asked.
“’Tis you and Alisha she watches,” Sister Lucy stated as she placed a jug of wine and another of water on the table. Theodoric shook his head at her. “Well, he should know she does.”