I choked. When I stopped spluttering, she tipped the cup again, and this time I was able to control myself.
I lapsed back into a semi-conscious state.
During the night, she returned half a dozen times, each time giving me another small sip.
In the morning, she brought me a crust of bread. I chewed on it listlessly.
“Why did you not kill me?” My voice, though still rough, was much improved. “I would have, if I were you.”
She shrugged. “I’ve better people to kill.”
I ignored her sarcasm. “You need me. To get to Rome. But I don’t understand why.”
She looked away, as if the conversation bored her.
“They will never let you sing, you know.”
“Rome,” she said distantly, “is more than a choir.”
Hearing Ali echo Kite’s words took me aback. I essayed no response, though. Truth be told, I didn’t want to know. I’d promised I’d keep her secrets, and those we don’t know are always easiest to keep.
Kite bid Lark and Ali support me as I walked. I couldn’t bring myself to touch Ali, but she grabbed my arm and slung it over her shoulder so vigorously I thought she was going to pull it out of its socket. It was slow going at first, but by midday Ali had abandoned me just to Lark. He huffed and puffed and probably got more than his fair share of exercise. He had filled his pockets with bits of food, and gave them to me, one after the other, all day. At lunch I managed a decent portion of cheese and dried strips of pork. By the end of the day, I felt strong enough that I tried limping along under my own steam.
Kite frowned, whether at my poor efforts or at the delay my infirmity had caused, I couldn’t tell. He halted us early that night, and we camped in a clearing with pines pressing in on all sides.
The next morning, Kite woke us all before sun-on; he shoved crusts, each with a thick slice of cheese, at us, and bid us eat as we walked.
I walked on my own that morning. As it turned out, we did not have far to go.
We emerged from the forest at sun-on, and the next Assumption hove into view. It sat on a rocky island in the midst of a stagnant lake, water lolling against one of its alabaster walls. At the base of this wall, a rickety wooden dock clung like a barnacle, and dilapidated stairs switch-backed up the side of the Assumption to a point mid-way to the wall’s summit. A raft, poled by a burly Jesuit, struck out from the dock to where we stood on the shore, and then conveyed us across. I felt the Jesuit eyeing my broken nose, black eyes, and the contusions that peppered my head.
As we disembarked, the Jesuit barred Kite’s way to the dock. “It is a poor Soldier of God,” he said, eyeing Kite’s tattered uniform, “who beats his children.”
“I am no longer a Soldier of God,” Kite said, “and these are not my children.”
For a moment the two locked gazes, and I wondered if it would come to blows. But the Jesuit inched back marginally, and Kite brushed past.
As we climbed, I glanced back to see the Jesuit staring at me, his hands on the bottom rail of the stair, ready to follow. I think if I had cried out for help, that man of God would have come to my aid in a heartbeat. I shook my head no, to try to tell him things were not as he assumed. I don’t know if he understood, but he did not follow us.
An unadorned plank door swung open for us when we reached the last landing. A Jesuit beckoned us in, then led us through a series of corridors, until we found ourselves in the weighing room. Although the fixtures and furniture were different, and some temporary structures had been erected, the layout of the rooms and corridors seemed identical to the first Assumption, as was the weighing apparatus.
Kite proffered his letters of passage to an officious-looking Priest.
A few minutes later, I was rising toward home.
Home
During our Assumption, I searched my memory, piecing together the routes we’d travelled, working out the general direction in which we’d moved through the last two Spheres. I reckoned we were quite a distance from my boyhood home in the Sphere above. However, it was possible that I’d missed a turn, or miscalculated the angle at which two of many roads intersected. There were also blanks where I might not have recalled the bend in a road, for as I said before, what I recall is exact, but my mind does not store every insignificant moment of my life.
I asked the Jesuit conducting us what Parish we’d be in when we emerged from the Assumption.
“Saint Dominic’s,” he told me amicably.
My heart skipped a beat; it was a neighbouring Parish. “Near Abraham City?”
“No. The one on the shore of the Dead Sea.”
Although I knew there was nothing for me in this Sphere, I still felt a pang of disappointment when I realized my boyhood home was, as I had estimated, on the other side of the Sphere. I would see nothing familiar.
“Where are you travelling?” he asked brightly.
I’d lost interest in conversing, but Kite surprised me by answering, “Rome.”
“Then you won’t see much of this Sphere,” he said, looking between us. “From here, it’s a week’s passage on a ship to the Assumption.”
I had already determined to see Ali to Rome, whatever her reasons. But had I still hoped to slip away from Kite, on a ship it would have proved impossible. No matter that I no longer had plans to flee, it felt like another door had been slammed and bolted behind me.
“The Charon?” Kite asked.
The Jesuit nodded enthusiastically. “Know her?”
“I sailed on her after I was excommunicated.”
The Jesuit was taken aback. He eyed Kite, seemed to take in his uniform for the first time. You could almost hear the gears turning in his head.
“When is she due?” Kite asked, as if nothing had changed.
“Fortnight,” the Jesuit answered coolly.
Kite asked if there was lodging nearby, and a few other questions about the place, but the Jesuit waved them all away, suddenly consumed by his work and too busy to answer.
The Jesuit had understated how little of the Sphere we would see. Or rather, how little there was to see.
When we walked from beneath the Assumption’s outer portcullis, we found ourselves looking out over a vast body of water, larger than any I had ever seen, extending beyond the curve of the horizon. The air, too, was unlike any I had ever breathed, heavy and with a salty tang. Directly below us a small fishing village perched on the sandy shores of the sea; it could have been home to no more than a hundred souls. The few streets were empty. A thin line of intermittent vegetation clung to the coastline, but that was the only foliage in sight. The rest was desert, dune after dune, rolling away behind us. Other than dirt tracks meandering along the coast, there were no roads in or out of the village. The wind gusted; I felt the tick of tiny sand particles across my cheeks and caught a whiff of the previous day’s rotting catch.
We picked our way down a narrow footpath from the Assumption, shooing a goat that blocked our way. It was hot, and I was sweating by the time we reached the village.
From the heights, I had seen the finger of a wharf stretching out over the water. Now that we were in the village proper, I saw that it was actually two docks. An older weathered pier stretched over the beach, and I saw by the marks and rusted rings on its pilings that vessels had once moored there. At the water’s edge, however, more recent construction extended the dock to a point where there was enough draft for vessels. It was hard to tell how old the newer wharf was, but I’d have guessed the extension to have been built at least a few decades ago.
All the vessels were at sea, save a disused one as weathered as the older dock and keel over on the beach. I scanned the horizon, and thought I could make out a clutch of small, ochre squares I took to be sails. If they were the vessels from this village, they would have put out long before we roused ourselves.
The inn was easy to pick out; it was the only two story structure in the village (save for the Church’s spire). It looked small and austere, but we
ll maintained. Over its door was a brightly painted plank declaring it to be the Widow’s Walk Inn. Though it was well past sun-on, we had to bang several times on the door to rouse the padrone, a lugubrious man of indeterminate age. He wiped sleep from his eyes when he saw the shine of Kite’s gold popes.
Kite hired two adjoining rooms that were surprisingly well appointed, with real beds, clean sheets, and night stands on which had been laid fresh towels and pitchers of water. I wondered at such luxury here, in this tiny village, then realized that the only guests hostelling here would be those travelling between the Assumptions—Clergy.
Kite and I were to share one room, Lark and Ali the other.
On that first day, Kite picked a flat spot with hard-packed soil just outside the village; stunted trees screened it from all the houses save for the railed platform atop the inn. In the relative privacy of this spot, we resumed our sparring lessons.
Lark and I fought. He was almost my equal now and it was easy to let him win so I wouldn’t have to go up against Ali, at least not right away. No doubt thinking the same thing, Ali let Lark beat her. It was well enough executed, and Lark seemed to believe it. Kite would have none of it, though, and paired me off against Ali. I dropped my stick and walked away. Kite made no attempt to stop me.
At a loss for what to do, I walked around the village; no one was about, but I fancied I saw the curtains in a few windows move as I passed. In a few minutes I’d seen all there was to see. I retreated to the inn and searched for a means to ascend to the structure on the roof, thinking to observe the sparring from there. Past our rooms I’d noted a corridor, and I turned down this and found a ladder rising through a trap door to the roof. I clambered up—and found the gloomy padrone, leaning on the rail, watching Lark and Ali go at it. “That skinny boy’s a natural talent,” he said, turning to face me. “Put a bit of meat on him and I expect he’d be a right formidable opponent.”
I moved over to the rail. Ali was reining blows down upon poor Lark, who was tripping over his own feet.
The padrone’s dolorous stare lingered on me. “You’re no slouch yourself.”
I let the compliment go unacknowledged.
“Not that you’re a match for that boy.” He spoke slowly, articulating each word as if it was a brick he was laying. “I’ve an eye for it, you know. My father was a swordsmith, and back of our shop was an area with wooden dummies, so’s the customers could test the mettle of their weapons. Often they came in pairs, though, preferring that to the dummies. From the window of my room I watched them practise their noble trade.” He sighed for the joy of a lost life. “But now I am here, a humble inn-keeper.” He sighed again. “I reckon the way they’re going they’ll be hungry soon.” He lifted himself wearily from the rail. “If you’ve nothing better to do, you can come to the kitchen and keep me company, boy.”
The pardone told me to call him Ambrose. Though he spoke slowly, he spoke constantly and so filled up the air with his weighty words. His tales were, without exception, woe filled. I tried to be condoling, to little effect. Why should Ambrose want consolation when misery seemed to have become his way of being? In the hour leading up to our midday meal, he related his sad history—a love of the sea that had seduced him from his home and hereditary trade, a love of a fisherman’s daughter that had brought him to this shore, and the illicit love that had spirited her away one night as he slept. It was then that I learned the inn was named for the railed platform on its roof: a widow’s walk, so called for the women who’d pace there, staring out to sea when their husband’s ships were late returning. Now only Ambrose walked it, standing watch for a wife who would never return.
If I didn’t commit every detail of his sorrowful tale to memory, I shall never forget that smell of the chowder he prepared. It wound together with that of baking bread, and my mouth watered uncontrollably. While I waited impatiently for the others to return, he gave me a history of the village’s tragedies, as well as a long list of the prominent visitors who’d passed through over the years. Bishops and Cardinals and the like. No Pope, though, for Pius CXXIV had not left the confines of the Vatican since being elected some twenty years ago, the year before Ambrose had made this his home.
“No one much travels these days,” he said, sawing off a piece of warm bread and tossing it to me. “You’re the first guests I’ve had in over a month.”
At that, I heard the others clumping into the inn and, moments later, we settled down in the common room to the first hearty meal I’d eaten in days. If there isn’t something in others’ tragedy that piques our appetites, then there is certainly nothing to dull it.
Boredom
Ours was a corner room, and that first night Kite barred the windows before lying on the floor, his heels against our locked door, his halberd next to him. I couldn’t imagine what possible threat there might be in this drowsy little village, but if Kite was worried, then who was I to question his instincts? When I snuffed out the candle, we were enveloped in utter darkness, and it occurred to me that anyone breaking into our room would be at a disadvantage until their eyes adjusted to the dark—by which time it would be too late for them. Perhaps this was another lesson.
“You will fight Ali,” Kite said, his disembodied voice unnaturally loud in the darkness.
“No.”
“He will not improve unless you do.”
“Is he not good enough to fend off the priests yet?” I regretted my slander as soon as it left my lips, and silently begged God’s forgiveness.
Then I heard a strange sound that took a moment to identify: Kite chuckling. “There’s hope for you, boy.”
For a time he was silent, then he spoke again. “He must improve.”
“Why?”
Kite didn’t answer my question. Instead he said, “You once told me that I did what I did because I owed Ignatius a debt. Though that is not entirely why, it is true enough.” It was the most personal thing Kite had ever revealed. “I can see you feel a similar indebtedness to Ali. I don’t know why, nor do I want to know. But you must fight him. And you must try to win. For his sake.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You must, Thomas.” It was the first time he called me by my Christian name. “It will be hard. But the more difficult, the more it will balance the scales between you.”
He lapsed into silence, leaving me to ponder that.
I knew Ali was not destined for the choir, and it seemed Kite did, too. She must improve. But why must she learn to wield a blade so effectively? I didn’t ask, nor do I think Kite would have answered. But he never bade us do anything he did not deem essential.
It sickened me, knowing that Kite imagined such violence in her future. It sickened me even more that I must fight her. I tossed and turned, dreading the morrow, knowing I would do as Kite asked, not because he asked, but because I would do anything to help Ali, whether she knew I was doing so or not.
I needn’t have fretted as much as I did; Ali engaged me enthusiastically the following morning, and it was all I could do to keep her from beating me senseless. Normally, she was a more careful opponent, preferring to wear me down before launching a relentless, calculated attack. This time, however, she threw herself at me without reserve. Not having time to think, my instinct for self-preservation kicked in, and I parried her thrusts, some of which would have done serious damage had I not. Her eyes blazing, she swung the butt of her weapon at my battered nose and I just managed to get my guard up to deflect the blow. In doing so I stumbled backward and went to one knee. She raised her blade and swung down with a stroke that would have split my skull—had Kite not leapt forward and reached out, her blade smacking into his palm with a sound that made me wince. Kite, of course, didn’t blink. He simply stood there, fixing Ali with his implacable stare until the anger that burnt in her eyes receded.
She retreated, allowing me to regain my feet.
After that, she continued to attack me aggressively, but never once swung for my head. As she pressed
me, I began to use her reluctance like a shield. I knew she would be swinging low so I crouched and led with my head. The stratagem was absurd. But it worked, and in this improbable pose I was now backing her. I loosed a wild flurry of overhead slashes which forced her to raise her own blade to block, effectively making it useless for attack: as fast as she was, it would be impossible for her to defend high while attacking low. She looked confused as I landed a blow on her shoulder—and she sucked in a sharp breath, probably more in surprise than pain. Abruptly, she adjusted her stance, stopped all counterattacks, and just parried my swings and thrusts. In a moment my aggressive tactics wore me out, as she knew they would, and after she easily deflected a feeble blow, she dropped her guard completely and spun around, kicking a leg out and planting her heel in my stomach. I went down like a sack of bricks, gasping for breath.
“Good,” Kite said to her, nodding in satisfaction. “You are thinking.” He looked to where I lay crumpled, arms wrapped around my belly. “You both are.” He stepped back. “Now Ali and Lark.”
We passed ten days in that village, training morning and afternoon.
The small fleet of fishing vessels departed and returned with numbing regularity. There were only four, all of a type the locals called a Smack. Ambrose, who’d seemed to have taken a liking to me, spoke at length about the various kinds of seafaring vessels, and their various riggings, after exhausting his stock of woebegone tales. He had told me during one of his orations that these local ships were ketch rigged, meaning they had two masts—a main mast and, abaft of that, a mizzen, which had to be forward of the rudder post. When I had asked why it had to be forward of the rudder, he said, “If it was abaft, then it would be a yawl, wouldn’t it?”
I caught sight of the local children—of whom there were only five, by my count—when they spied on our training sessions, or followed us through the village, darting between houses, like frightened mice. They seemed to run wild, for I never saw them with adults; but in the evening they disappeared, one by one, into their homes.
The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven Page 12