THE
Mask Of Loki
Roger Zelazny
Thomas T. Thomas
Prologue
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail
—William Shakespeare
* * *
The intense heat from the "glory hole" tightened the skin of her forehead and throat. She pulled her lips back in a grimace, and the skin around them dried, too. Her lipstick suddenly felt thick and crusted, like asphalt bubbling black in the sunlight.
Alexandra Vaele stepped two paces back from the open mouth of the furnace. That was a mistake. The sudden drop in temperature told her body it was time to compensate, and the tiny beads of sweat started in her hairline, along her upper lip, at the hollow of her throat. She could feel the stiff silk of her white blouse wilt and sag across her upper arms and around her breasts. In a moment it would be patched with sweat marks.
"Mr. Thorwald?" she called over the roar of the gas-fed fire. "Ivor Thorwald?"
The shaggy head lifted once and nodded, then bent to the pumping pace of arms and shoulders. Alexandra watched for a moment as the weave of his cotton tee-shirt pulled first one way, then another with the action. She moved around to see what he was working on, and to put the man's body between her and the yellow-white eye of the furnace.
A lump of molten glass, as large as a ripe tomato and just as red. Its red, however, was the angry red of an inner heat, not the cool red of a fruit's damp skin. And at the heart of the lump shone a yellow glow, like a memory of that furnace. Thorwald worked the lump on the end of a steel rod, rounding and smoothing it with a scorched wooden cup as he rolled the rod along a steel beam. To protect the hand and arm that worked the glass, he wore a padded gauntlet faced with metallic threads. On the thigh nearest the flying lump he wore a piece of sheetmetal, curved and shaped like a knights armor, held on with cracked leather straps. Thorwald wore wide safety glasses and he smoked cigarettes.
After a hundred turns with the cup, the glass was almost black again. Thorwald stood up, flicked his long-ashed butt aside, hefted the steel rod, turned—almost catching her face with the far end of it—and shot the lump back into the furnace. He hooked the rod into an over-and-under brace that extended in front of the glory hole.
"What you want?" he asked, flexing his fingers in the gauntlet. His eyes traveled her up and down: the white blouse limp on her body, the wide belt tight on her narrow waist, the straight black skirt that molded her hips, the tops of her knees...
"Do you do commission work?" she asked quickly.
"Depends."
"Depends on what?"
"Depends on whether I'm interested."
One of those, she sighed inwardly. She moved her hips so and just so, as if she were—hungry.
"In the project," he said heavily. "What did you want?"
Alexandra reached into her shoulder bag and removed the jeweler's envelope. She opened the flap and bent the sides, then shuffled the contents forward. Alexandra was careful to keep them on the paper and away from her fingers—although she did put her hand under the envelope's mouth in case they fell.
Thorwald bent closer. He glanced at her, as if for permission, and then took off the gauntlet and put forward a surprisingly white hand. He picked up one of the shards with thumb and finger and held it to the daylight that came in through the end of the workshed.
"Onyx," Thorwald said. "Or sardonyx, from that reddish banding. Not enough here to set—at least not to show off."
"Can you make it into glass?"
"This much? What you got there? Fifteen, twenty carats, tops. Or do you have a truckload more out in the yard?"
"This is all I've been... all I have."
"Keep it for a souvenir."
"But can't you mix it with other... whatever it is you make glass out of?"
"Sure, onyx is just a kind of quartz. Silicon dioxide. Same thing as glass, almost. Those two little chips of yours, add them to the melt and—pfft!—they're gone. They'd color the glass some, depending on how much I was working. But not a good color, mind, not like it was planned."
"That's all right. In fact, the less color the better. Best if there's no color at all, just clear glass."
"Then why add anything?"
"Because it's important. That's all I can say. Will you take the commission?"
"Commission to do what, exactly?"
"To make a glass, a drinking glass, with those pieces of—sardonyx, did you call them?—fused into it."
"A drinking glass." He wrinkled his nose. "A goblet? Tulip glass? Snifter? Something blown?"
"A water glass, the kind you might drink Coke or Perrier out of. Straight sides, flat bottom. A tumbler."
"Not interested." He turned back to his furnace, gripped the steel rod.
"I'll pay well. A hundred—a thousand dollars."
His shoulders, set to lift the rod, came back down.
"That's a lot of money."
"It has to be perfect," she said. "Indistinguishable from a piece of commercial glassware."
"This is a gag of some kind? A rich folk's party favor or something?"
"Exactly!" Alexandra Vaele gave him a big smile, and this one was genuine. "It's an invitation to a party."
* * *
Sura 1
Crowning the King
Think, in this batter'd caravanserai
Whose portals are alternate night and day,
How sultan after sultan with his pomp
Abode his destin'd hour, and went his way.
—Omar Khayyam
* * *
The crusader's boots stank of mare's piss. The hem of his heavy woolen cloak had picked up yellow crumbs of manure, which he was now scattering across the marble with every step. Uncouth.
And yet Alois de Medoc, Knight of the Temple and Master of the Keep at Antioch, greeted his guest with open arms.
"Bertrand du Chambord! Come such a distance! And so swiftly you could not even stop to clean your boots."
He embraced his kinsman, gingerly, and clapped the flat of his hands against the cloaked and mailed shoulders. Dust rose in billows. Alois sneezed.
Releasing Bertrand, he looked him up and down. A few new scars bloomed—sealed with a hot iron, no doubt—on what of the dirty, tanned skin was visible to the eye. Bertrand's heavy fighting mail was rusted with sweat, except where its rents had been recently mended with bright circlets. His white tunic decorated with a straight, red cross—worn in imitation of a Templar's, and he would soon learn the etiquette of that—bore patches and darns. Square patches to cover the chafings of wear; straight darns to close scimitar cuts. From the near-whiteness of the wool around the latter, it was clear that the mail had done its work and saved the skin. No gore stains—or none too wide.
Saved that skin for me, Alois thought happily.
Like his cousin, the Templar wore a white tunic, but it was of cool linen, not the crusader's penitential wool. Like Bertrand, he wore a crusader's hood of steel rings, but these were as light as lace, the finest wire that the smiths of Damascus could weld.
Alois stepped back and signaled to the Saracen boy who kept the entry hall. The boy, too, wore pants and surcoat of linen—a sign of the Keep's wealth to so dress its slaves—with boots of soft antelope hide and a turban of clean cloth. The lad rushed forward and began to brush at Bertrand's hem.
Alois kicked him.
"Rags and water, boy! Remove that fecal matter from my floor! And burn sandalwood by the window to clear the air."
"Yes, Lord!" The boy dodged away.
"Now, Bertrand. How may the Templars of Antioch serve you?"
"
My bishop bids me to do an act of contrition in this Holy Land. But I would do an act of glory."
"Glory to God, of course."
"Of course, cousin. And there is the problem. It is so expensive, taking ship's passage, from one safe haven to the next, and the infidel bands, the fighting ... why simply to come overseas, to reach Outremer, has depleted my substance."
Alois smiled as gently as he could, clapped his kinsman on the shoulder and pushed him toward a chair of Lebanese cedar. The man's bottom at least was clean, and his cloak would protect the wood grain from his mailed backside.
"How many men did you start with?"
"Forty mounted knights, all good North Country stock, with the berserker's edge in their fighting."
"Equippage?"
"Horses, arms and mail, food and wine, carts to hold the plunder." And here Bertrand grinned and laughed from his belly. "Grooms and lackeys, cooks and scullions, and the odd serving wench."
"And how much is left to you?"
Bertrand's smile faded. "Four men, six horses, one cart. We sold the wenches into slavery, to pirates, in exchange for our lives."
"Well, kinsman. It would appear you still have your arms and your mail coat. You can fight in the armies that Guy de Lusignan will muster when he is crowned King in Jerusalem. Or perhaps you can raid out of Antioch with Reynald de Chatillon, our Prince. That will bring you glory."
"But I promised the Bishop of Blois a battle, conceived out of my own wits and won with my own hand, for Christ Jesus's sake!"
"Hard to do now, with only four men and not even adequate remounts."
"I had thought you might help."
"What can I do?"
"Loan me the men."
"From the Order of the Temple?"
"They are yours to command."
Alois pursed his lips. "We are all brothers in Christ, within the Order. I command this Keep as a house of rest, for their relaxation, and as a place of safety. No more."
"You can persuade your brothers."
"To follow you?"
"Yes, for Christ's sake."
"To do what, exactly?"
"To take the Tomb—?"
"Ha, ha. We Christians already hold Jerusalem, kinsman. The Mount, the Tomb, and the site of old Solomon's temple. What else would you capture—as an act of contrition?"
"Well, I—"
"Look here, Sirra! What resources do you have?"
"Well... nothing but what I have on my back."
"And at home?"
"My family honor. A coat of arms that dates from before Charlemagne. The livelihood from seventy thousand acres of the best bottom land in Orleanis, granted by Old King Philip in the year he died."
"Nothing of your own?"
"A wife," Bertrand admitted.
"Nothing of ready value?"
"Well, a parcel or two..."
"How much?"
"Three thousand acres."
"Free and clear?"
"From my father."
"Will you put it up as collateral?"
"Collat—what's that?" the French knight asked.
"A pledge. The Order will loan you money, with which you can obtain the services of mounted knights and buy horses, soldiers, arms, rations. In exchange you promise to pay us back, plus a percentage for our interest."
"The sin of usury!"
"It's a hard world, cousin."
"How much money?"
"I believe the Order could see its way to a loan of 36,000 piasters. That would be equivalent to 1,200 Syrian dinars."
"How much is that in money?"
"Fifty times that amount has ransomed the killer of a Saracen king in this land. Think you on the quantity of conscience-money that we of the Temple and the other orders absorbed when Henry of England had Becket—a simple cleric—removed. And this assassination put down a king!"
"So these dinars would buy men, horses, and loyalty?"
"All that you need."
"And where does my land come into it?"
"You will repay the amount, plus interest, from what you plunder after the battle. If you do not pay, your parcel of land in France will become ours."
"I will pay you."
"Of course you will. So the land is in no danger, is it?"
"No, I suppose not... You will take my word on all this, as a Christian and a knight, before God?"
"I would take your word gladly, cousin. But my masters in the Order require papers. I may die, you understand, but your pledge and the loan are with the Order of the Temple."
"I understand."
"Good then. I will have scribes prepare the papers. You can put your mark to them."
"And then I get my money?"
"Well, not immediately. We must send a messenger to Jerusalem, for the blessing of Gerard de Ridefort, who is the master of our Order."
"I understand. How long?"
"A week's travel, there and back."
"And where in all this hostile land shall I eat and lodge for so long?"
"Why, here of course. You will be a guest of the Order."
"I thank you, kinsman. That is spoken like a true Northman."
Alois de Medoc smiled. "Think nothing of it. The interval will give you time to clean your boots."
* * *
The table in the private apartments of Gerard de Ridefort, Master of the Order of the Temple, was seven cubits long and three cubits wide. But it hardly took up a fraction of the space allotted to him in the Keep of Jerusalem.
Some Saracen artisan had carved the sawn edges of the table's long planks with the likenesses of Norman faces: oval after oval with wide, staring eyes under conical steel caps; flowing mustaches over square, tombstone teeth; and ears like jug handles, intertwined from one head to the next.
Thomas Amnet studied the linked heads, immediately divining the caricature and the motive behind it. Lord Jesus, he whispered to himself, how these poor creatures must hate us! Western barbarians, holding their cities by force of arms, by our faith in an upstart Carpenter-God, and by the forces of an older Hidden One.
"What magic are you working, Thomas?"
"Ayuh? What was that you said, Gerard?"
"You can lose yourself in studying the edge of a table, and you don't even hear me."
"I heard you well enough. You wanted to know if Guy de Lusignan is the right choice for the crown."
"The choice is with God, Thomas."
"And, to some extent, with Sibylla. She is mother to the late King Baldwin, sister to the Baldwin before him, the Leper King, and daughter to King Amalric before him. And now she has taken Guy for her consort."
"That does not automatically make him king," Gerard reminded. "What I need to know is, will the Order of the Temple profit most by backing Guy de Lusignan in his claim or by putting our weight with the Prince of Antioch?"
"Provided that Prince Reynald first decides that he will not attempt to take it by force of arms, you mean?"
"Of course, of course. And if he does—?"
"Reynald de Chatillon is a beast—but you know that already, My Lord.
"When the Patriarch of Antioch reproved Reynald for blackmailing the Emperor Manuel in Constantinople," Amnet continued, "the Prince ordered his personal barber to shave the old man's head and beard, leaving a crown and necklace of shallow cuts about his ears and throat. Then Reynald smeared these wounds with honey and chained the Patriarch atop a high tower in the midday sun, until the flies almost drove the old man insane.
"Reynald attacked and plundered the protected settlements on Cyprus, in three weeks burning their churches—churches, Gerard!—and crops, murdering villagers, raping women, butchering cattle. That island will not recover from Reynald de Chatillon for a generation.
"Hardly was he done with this enterprise than he took ship down the Red Sea and burned a fleet of pilgrim vessels in Medina. It's rumored he had a mind to capture Mecca itself and burn that holy city b
ack to a stick of charred wood in the desert. Instead, he laughed himself into a fit over the plight of drowning pilgrims..."
"Now, Thomas. Is it not a Christian's duty to slay the infidel?"
"With one hand Reynald thumbs his nose at Christians in Cyprus. With the other he bites his thumb at the Saracens in Medina. King Saladin, the Protector of Islam, himself has sworn vengeance on this man—as has the Christian Emperor at Constantinople. Reynald is a danger to anyone within sword's reach."
"Then you counsel me to support Guy?"
"Guy is a fool and will be the worst king Jerusalem has ever endured."
Gerard stirred his bulk behind the table.
"You put me between a fool and a rabid fox. Tell me, Thomas, have you seen Guy's kingship—from Anno Domini 1186 unto Anno Domini only-you-and-the-Devil-know—played out in your Seeing Stone?"
"Stone, My Lord? Do I need powers of divination to tell me what any child can see with his own two eyes? It was Guy who engineered the massacre at Arad of a peaceful Bedouin tribe and their flocks, simply to devil the Christian lords who received their grazing fees."
"Again, Thomas, is it wrong to kill the heathen?"
"Wrong? I do not say wrong. Just foolish, My Lord. When we are one to their thousand. When every Frenchman in Outremer must come over the water and along dusty roads on horse, fighting pirates and slavers and merchant thieves and the bloody revolt of his own bowels every step of the way. When the heathens rise from the sand in their thousands like spring grass after a shower, each armed with a razor-sharp scimitar and clothed in a burning loyalty to his cunning, heathenish generals. Then it is only wisdom to put some of your notions of right and wrong to one side and let sleeping Bedouins lie about their wells and pay their grazing fees."
"Do you rebuke me, Thomas?"
"My Lord? I rebuke the folly that is Guy de Lusignan and the brute that is Reynald de Chatillon."
"But as Keeper of the Stone, it is your duty to advise me with its powers. Tell me, then, is Guy strong enough to stand up to Reynald de Chatillon?"
"Does it matter?" Thomas replied. "We are."
"And thus we should support Guy... ?"
The Mask of Loki Page 1