Saint-Germain 18: Dark of the Sun: A Novel of the Count Saint-Germain

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Rojeh complied at once, using the mule’s lead to tickle his stallion just above the stifle; almost at once, the horse lashed out with his back legs. Three more kicks and the wood splintered, and Rojeh kneed the horse around, dragging the mule with him. “How do we get out of the village?” he shouted back to Ragoczy Franciscus, who had bridled his blue roan and, taking a fistful of mane, swung onto her back, leaving his saddle behind as he rode her out of the church.

  In the dark, the first brilliant flames were glaring at the far end of the church, and they were spreading fast. Four shadowy figures could just be made out near the fire, one of them carrying a pair of torches; they wheeled about as they heard the sound of breaking wood and the clatter of insistent hooves.

  “Go toward the stream! There will be a door to the stream!” Ragoczy Franciscus shouted. Clinging to the mare with his calves, he urged her forward, passing near enough to the fire to feel the rush of its own wind. Then they were into a passageway that had a break in the wall at the end of it, where a waist-high gate stood; they made for it at the gallop. Even the mule cleared the low gate in a scrambling leap, Ragoczy Franciscus’ blue roan immediately behind him. Almost at once they were in the stream, bound for the far bank, while behind them the flames from the church stretched hectically toward the sky. Water splashed up and foamed ahead of them. Shouts rising behind them faded quickly; they were not being pursued. At the far bank as the two horses and the mule climbed up the pebbly shore, Ragoczy Franciscus had to lean forward and wrap his arm around the mare’s neck to keep from falling off. In the narrow meadow beyond the bank of the stream, they pulled in and took stock of their present situation.

  “At least we have all our goods on the mule,” Ragoczy Franciscus said, his voice hushed from the strain of yelling.

  “You’ve lost your saddle,” Rojeh pointed out.

  “Yes.”

  “It was padded with your native earth.”

  “I know.” Ragoczy Franciscus looked up at the sky and noticed a plume of smoke sliding along the night breeze. “That fire is going to burn more than the church, I fear.”

  “Serves them right for trying to burn us,” Rojeh declared indignantly.

  “It is—”

  “If you say sad or unfortunate or a pity,” Rojeh warned tranquilly, “I will … I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “It is all those things, as well as mad and murderous. Relentless trouble is everywhere.” Ragoczy Franciscus wiped his face, leaving a smear on his cheek above his beard. “We should have found a thicket in the forest, after all.”

  “We had better do that snow,” said Rojeh. “We don’t want to be in the open when the sun rises.”

  “No; that would suit neither of us,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, turning his blue roan and heading toward the west and a vast expanse of trees that vanished into the darkness.

  Text of a letter from Thetis Krisanthemenis at Pityus to her uncle, Porphyry Cantheos, at Sinope, written on a thin plank of wood with a stylus, then rubbed with paint to make it legible; carried by trading vessel and delivered twenty-six days after it was entrusted to the Captain of the Harvest Moon.

  To my most excellent uncle, Porphyry Cantheos, the heartfelt greetings of your niece, Thetis Krisanthemenis, from the port of Pityus, where I and my children have come. I fear I must ask that you and my brother reach an agreement in regard to my living situation. I have some monies provided to me by the foreigner Ragoczy Franciscus, which has allowed us to hire a small house here in Pityus, but it will not support us forever, and before it is exhausted, I must beseech you to determine where I and my children are to go.

  Sarai has been evacuated due to an earthquake that broke the walls in three places and destroyed one of the docks. The town has been losing people steadily since the sun turned cold, and that has meant that there are not sufficient numbers of laborers to do the work that is required by the damage done to the town, for many of the houses were shaken so much that their walls caved in, and before Sarai can be occupied again, it must be cleared of all dangerous rubble, which, I am saddened to tell you, includes my husband’s house and the house of Ragoczy Franciscus. His cook, a Persian named Dasur, was killed in the collapse of the kitchen, and my old servant Herakles broke his arm badly, which festered and killed him. It has been suggested that the town be moved, but I am not able to wait for a year and more for such advantages to be declared, and so I have come away. Ragoczy Franciscus has lost the house he hired and all he put into it, but he may well have died by now, so the losses might not matter after all.

  It is a hard thing to have to leave a home, even one as distant as Sarai, for my husband took me there some years ago, and the town has become familiar to me. I have worshiped in the church there and been advised by Patriarch Stavros, who, even now, is returning to his family. Thus I am without spiritual guidance at a time I yearn for it, and I must implore you to provide an introduction to a Patriarch who is willing to take up the task of instructing me. In these dreadful times, I feel the lack of comfort of Patriarch Stavros’ counsel, and the geniality of the Foreigners’ Quarter. If you decide that I am to come to you, I ask that you send an appropriate escort for us, so that we will not be completely at the mercy of the sailors and others who might seek to enrich themselves at your expense.

  My brother has told me in several letters that he cannot easily add my family to his, and if that is the case, I am loath to make such an attempt, which is the reason I have approached you before I try to reach him. May you show yourself to be made of finer stuff than my brother has proven himself to be. Whatever you resolve to do, I will always pray for you and for the well-being of all our family.

  Thetis Krisathemenis

  (her mark)

  widow of Eleutherios Panayiotos

  Faithfully copied by Brother Hyakinthos

  on the twenty-first day after the Vernal Equinox

  7

  With the lengthening days curtailing their hours of travel, it took eleven nights for Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh to go from Poranache to Olbshe at the mouth of the Dnieper. There, at sunset at the end of their first day in the town, Ragoczy Franciscus, in a heavy black silk kandys with a hood to protect his face, took the last of their gold to a money changer who kept a shop a few steps from the largest market-square in the town.

  The money changer was a small, thin man made up of ferocious angles, with the permanent squint of the shortsighted. A Persian by lineage and a Byzantine by inclination, he was suitably impressed with Ragoczy Franciscus’ finery, but said, “Elegant plumage does not mean the meat is wholesome.”

  “No, it does not,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, setting down a long bar of gold. “However, this may improve the savor.”

  “Oho!” the money changer exclaimed, lifting the bar reverently. “This is from Cathay. Those scratchings are their way of writing, or so I am told.”

  “It is the name of the goldsmith—Chou Zhan-Wah—and the seal of his guild-master, and a statement of weight,” Ragoczy Franciscus said.

  “Chou Zhan-Wah! Dreadful names they give these foreigners,” said the money changer, who was called Kurush Sadimatsrau. He weighed the gold carefully. “We don’t see much metal from Cathay of late.”

  “Travel has slowed,” Ragoczy Franciscus agreed.

  Sadimatsrau waggled a finger at the black-clad foreigner. “You must know that I have to be careful. With so much hardship about, many have resorted to all manner of counterfeiting of gold and silver. I have to be sure—you understand.”

  “I understand that you do not want to accept lead for gold,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.

  “No, I do not,” said Sadimatsrau. “You say you want to be given the worth of this in coins, mostly silver, a few gold, some copper, some brass?” The money changer was already reaching for his strongbox. “I charge twenty-five percent of the worth of this bar of gold.”

  “You will charge twenty, as is done in Constantinople, and you will not try to convince me that the value of gold ha
s recently declined, making it impossible for you to assess this at a high rate,” said Ragoczy Franciscus with a polite manner and steely purpose.

  “How you merchants like to bargain,” Sadimatsrau muttered, sighing. “This will be the ruin of me, charging so little and agreeing to higher prices than I can recoup.”

  “You will do very handsomely,” Ragoczy Franciscus corrected him cheerfully.

  “I am not a rich man,” he began, fully prepared to launch into a lengthy self-justification.

  Ragoczy Franciscus cut him short. “Possibly not rich, but you will be better off for making this exchange.”

  Sadimatsrau flung up his hands. “If you insist, then what can I do but comply?” He opened his strongbox furtively and stood so that Ragoczy Franciscus got no more than a glimpse of it. “Forty silver Emperors, five gold Angels, twenty copper Apostles, and thirty brass Empresses.” He did his best to sound as if this were his highest offer.

  “Fifty silver Emperors, ten gold Angels, thirty copper Apostles, and fifty brass Empresses,” Ragoczy Franciscus countered promptly.

  “You wish to beggar me,” Sadimatsrau complained, then suggested, “Forty-five silver Emperors, eight gold Angels, twenty-five copper Apostles, and forty brass Empresses.”

  “Done,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, disappointing Sadimatsrau, who had looked forward to a good haggle.

  “All right,” he grumbled, and began to count out the coins. “The gold bar had better be as pure as you claim. or I will have to ask the Master of Trade to demand recompense.”

  “Then satisfy yourself as to the quality quickly, for I am bound to the West in two days.” Ragoczy Franciscus tried not to laugh at the money changer’s dismay.

  “If you are not here tomorrow, I will know you have cheated me.”

  “I will be here, and I will be pleased to accept your apology for the suspicions you harbor about me,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, and left Sadimatsrau’s shop to seek out a saddlery on the market-square where leather goods, hides, and furs were sold. There he purchased a Persian saddle, with a breast-collar and girth, and carried this back to the Inn of Many Lanterns, remarking to Rojeh as he entered their shared room, “I think the mare will be pleased.”

  “Not to have you riding bareback?” Rojeh suggested. “Perhaps. I know you will much prefer having a saddle. It would be better to have your native earth to add to the padding so we could ride in the day.” He regarded Ragoczy Franciscus with determined optimism. “Well, we should reach your mountains more handily with you in a saddle: that’s to the good.”

  Ragoczy Franciscus sat down, taking the saddle into his lap and looking it over carefully. “Unfortunately, there is no place to attach the straps for the Jou’an-Jou’an metal foot-loops. The frame has nothing to support them.”

  “You are not planning to fire a bow while riding, are you?” Rojeh laughed briefly. “Neither of us has such weapons, and so the foot-loops, metal or not, are hardly essential.”

  “Still, it eases the back, having those metal foot-loops.” He put the saddle down, resting it on its pommel and the front of the short flaps. “Later tonight, I am going to see if there are any women I can reach who long for sweet dreams. It will not be much, but certainly preferable to taking more from the horses and the mule.”

  “A fine idea,” Rojeh approved, and went on to provide an inventory of their remaining supplies.

  It was after midnight when Ragoczy Franciscus left the inn, making his way along the narrow lanes that framed the four market-squares of Olbshe, listening intently to more than sounds; when he returned to the inn shortly before dawn, he was able to tell Rojeh that he had visited a youthful widow in her dreams and was feeling much stronger than he had been.

  Rojeh took a handful of coins, announcing, “I will find more grain today, and dried fruit, if there is any to be had.”

  “A fine idea,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “If you find good saddle-pads, buy them, as well.”

  “I will,” Rojeh promised. “Sleep well, my master.” He let himself out of the room.

  Two nights later, they were under way again, taking the road that followed the shore of the Black Sea. They kept on through three nights of high winds and one of spectacular thunderstorms. After eight nights they arrived on the outskirts of Odessus and found a barn in which to sleep for the day, wakening near sundown and preparing to enter the town. It was the first market-day of summer in Odessus and the first major market of the year, for the spring had come wet and late, making roads all but impassable for carts; peasants and travelers alike were reluctant to venture out. Now, with the first spate of clear weather holding for more than three days, the gates of the town had been thrown open at dawn, and men trooped through them with such wares and stock as they thought might be traded or sold. As the day waned, those among the marketers who could afford to dispersed into the inns and taverns for hectic revelry, so that as Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh entered the gates, they found a band of men celebrating their day’s dealing by dancing to a tabor and bladder-pipe.

  “Where are you bound?” the guard challenged as the dancers and musicians roistered by.

  “We are looking for an inn,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “We want a place where we do not have to share beds and the stable has box stalls for our animals. We do not mind paving a bit more for such amenities.”

  The guard looked the two strangers over, taking visual stock of them. “There are four inns down that street that should suit your needs; one is much like another, and all are reckoned to be good, if you’re willing to part with silver.” He pointed past the celebrants. “Don’t be put off by them; they may be a bit noisy now, but it won’t last long. They will soon go to the brothels or the taverns or be too drunk to move.” He rested his hand on the hilt of his short-sword. “If they get too frisky, we have ways to calm them.”

  “Is there a tax to enter the town?” Ragoczy Franciscus asked.

  “Are you selling any goods or planning to buy them?”

  “We need feed for our animals and a cask for water,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.

  “Those are not taxed. So long as you pay full price at your inn, there is no tax.” He stepped aside to permit them to pass.

  They settled on the inn set farthest back from the street, a fifteen-room establishment catering to Byzantine and Roman patrons, the Pelican’s Nest. The landlord was a fellow of practiced joviality, a big-shouldered, square-bearded, once-hefty sort who took the coins Ragoczy Franciscus offered and explained, “We back up to a convent, and sometimes the women chant. If it bothers you, let me know and we’ll move you to a front room.”

  Ragoczy Franciscus counted out the sum the landlord required. “Is there any way I might arrange to use your forge? I need to shape toe cleats for our horses.”

  “Going into the mountains, are you?” the landlord asked.

  “That is our intention,” Ragoczy Franciscus answered.

  “The use of the forge for half a day will cost a silver Emperor, and that is if the smith is not working it,” said the landlord, chuckling out of habit.

  “Would your smith object to permitting me to fire the forge at night?” asked Ragoczy Franciscus with a genial half-smile to show he was prepared for a negative response.

  “I’ll find out,” said the landlord.

  The landlord snapped his fingers for a slave to come to escort the new arrivals to their rooms, which proved to be small and neat, each with a Byzantine bed and a stand for cases and chests. An Eastern Rite crucifix hung on the wall in each chamber, the only decoration.

  Rojeh looked from his room to Ragoczy Franciscus’ and back again. “Facing northwest—there should not be too much direct sunlight.”

  “My thought exactly,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. He moved so another household slave could set down their clothes-chest on the stand in his room. “I think I will go out shortly.”

  Rojeh glanced at him. “Should I expect you back shortly?”

  “I would hope not,” said Ragoczy
Franciscus. “It would mean I have not found sustenance.”

  “I will see if there are any chickens left in the market at this hour.” Rojeh paused. “I suppose, if I bring one to the cook, he will dress one for me. I doubt the landlord would like me to fletch and gut a chicken in this room.”

  “I would imagine you are right.” Ragoczy Franciscus opened the clothes-chest and took out a black-silk abolla and a fibula with which to fix it to his shoulder.

  “Any finer and you would become the target of thieves,” said Rojeh, his faded-blue eyes keen.

  “I will endeavor to keep that in mind,” said Ragoczy Franciscus as he left the room, closing the door behind him, and went down the stairs. Outside the revelry continued, and an ill-assorted group of sailors and peasants were playing an impromptu game involving groups of runners with linked arms: what few rules there were seemed to be casually enforced; Ragoczy Franciscus gave them a wide berth, making for one of the broader streets that led away from the square. He went at a steady pace, not too rapidly so that he could be attentive to things around him, but not too slowly. Two blocks along he came to a pair of churches, one with an impressive door with brass hinges and an extensive display of crucifixes on the facade, the other, opposite it, small and unadorned, all but the front enclosed in a wall. He stopped and studied the two buildings and concluded the more humble of the two had to be the convent the landlord had mentioned. Standing between the two churches, he was struck by the contrast—one elaborate and impressive, the other self-effacing; he wished he could see them by daylight, but knew that would be unwise. A bit reluctantly he moved on, following the wall of the convent, then crossing a street paved with ancient, cracked stones, going toward a well that stood on the far side, with a bucket for humans and a small trough for animals. As he approached, a small number of rats scattered into the night shadows; the strength of the water that tugged at him told him the well was deep and the water plentiful. He moved into the angle of one of the houses that faced the well and took stock of his situation, doing his best to work out some plan to find a sleeping woman whose dreams he could shape and share. He was so preoccupied that at first he hardly noticed the young woman in the faded, shapeless talaris who came from the side door of the convent carrying a yoke and two brass pails.