Antichrist

by Cecelia Holland

  “What are you doing here?” Theophano said.

  “I don’t know “

  In the little silence that followed, the words sounded strange, like something heard under hashish.

  “Your theories always constitute a direct attack on the concept of morality,” Fakhr-ad-Din said. “Who’s your court philosopher these days?”

  “I am.” He grinned. Come on, Dawud, argue.

  “You don’t believe that people do certain things out of a sense of altruistic devotion? Out of consideration of a higher ideal?”

  “Sometimes. Not often. After all, to consider a high ideal, which isn’t something essential to survival, one has to be relatively free of distractions, like terror and boredom.”

  “Of course. But a man like me is in such a position. To me the pursuit of a generally acceptable ideal is valuable in itself, as an affirmation, as a set of known and tested and functioning hypotheses about life, or simply as a way of life in which friction and discomfort are reduced to a minimum and my personal freedom is practically assured. Yet we’re in similar, situations, and you consistently deny the value of a general morality.”

  “That’s because I don’t believe anybody can learn and progress from one idea to the next and on unless he refuses to accept a minimum of friction and discomfort and a practical assurance of personal freedom. Now, look, Dawud. You develop a skill only as much as you need for the purpose at hand, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” Fakhr-ad-Din snapped his fingers for a page and sent him after more cookies.

  “Birds, then. A bird that flies well doesn’t learn how to walk well, he doesn’t need to. A bird that lives in the water loses the ability to live on land because he doesn’t have to live on land. People are the same way. You have to force yourself into uncomfortable situations to develop your intellectual skills.”

  Theophano clapped her hands together. “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Affirmation from a most excellent source,” Fakhr-ad-Din said, and bowed to her. “Frederick, consider that in her travels and her attempts to make a better life for herself, alone, a woman alone, she has certainly encountered more difficulty and seen more levels of life than either of us.”

  Maybe. He reached for a ewer full of sherbet, resting in a bowl of snow. Is that why I think this way? Because I remember how it was when I was little and alone and had to . . . “Dawud?”

  “Thank you.” Falchr-ad-Din held out his cup. “You made an interesting point before—or rather, you skirted it. The direction of warlike men into the Crusade. Don’t you think that many of the terrors and most of the boredom you mentioned exist only within people’s imaginations, and most often they’ll try to focus their emotions on an outward and independent object? Like Jerusalem. It’s blindingly clear that a trip to the earthly Jerusalem will save no one who has not already found Jerusalem in his own soul.”

  “Naturally. The True Cross, relics, saints—it’s all magic, it’s witchcraft. Your dervishes are another example. Or Francesco—you remember I told you about him.”

  “The man who received the wounds of Christ. Yes.”

  “Wounds in his hands, feet, and side. In his hands, that’s the especially interesting point. Have you ever seen anyone crucified?”

  Fakhr-ad-Din grimaced. “No. I have no wish to.”

  “You cannot crucify someone by nailing his hands to the wood. His weight will pull his hands right off the nails.” He drew a deep breath. The long war with the Saracens in the mountains of Sicily. Everybody had gotten bloodthirsty—me too. Kicked that emir with my spur. But he’d made me angry.

  “So if Francesco had received the wounds of God from God Himself,” Fakhr-ad-Din said, “he’d have gotten holes where?”

  “In his wrists.”

  “You can’t be sure,” Theophano said. “How can you say something like that? It’s of no importance.”

  “But it is,” Frederick said. “Because if it’s all so, Francesco was not given the wounds by God, he received them through his own devotion. Which makes the entire outward structure of the Church a lie, and an unnecessary one at that.”

  “Most people are incapable of that devotion.”

  “True. It requires a certain amount of faith that I, for one, am unwilling to give.”

  They sat still, listening to the wind blowing over the roofless building. Tomorrow . . . maybe a message will come from al-Kamil. But I don’t think so. Not being sure, not knowing: terror. What am I doing here?

  “Well, with your permission, Frederick, I’m going to bed.” Fakhr-ad-Din rose. “I expect by tomorrow to see an entire city flourishing on this spot, furnished completely and flowering with gardens. Good night.”

  With his attendants and torchbearers around him, he walked out the side door. Frederick watched his gold-stitched robes wink in the uneven light. When I wake up, will I be in Sicily again? Everything felt unreal—the whole journey. It seemed that everything had happened so fast he couldn’t keep hold of it. What am I doing here? If he knew, he wouldn’t be doing it. That makes as much sense as anything else I’ve said tonight.

  “Do you want me to stay, Red? I’m tired.”

  “No—go on. I’ll be in in a moment.”

  She rose and left, and another pack of servants detached themselves from the shadows and surrounded her. Something Fakhr-ad-Din had said—she knew more about life, she’d done more—as if she’d told him things she’d never told Frederick. Theophano, the juggler’s assistant. Justinian’s Empress had been a whore—why not? Because polity will eventually provide me with another wife, and I can’t afford to waste that kind of currency. Bed-bargains are the best. Maybe al-Kamil has an unmarried daughter. He thought of how that would shock the Christians and grinned. Why not? King Richard knighted Salah-ad-Din. I can find a precedent for anything, lawyer that I am.

  En-Nasr had taken advantage of Frederick’s move to Jaffa to raid out of Damascus, cutting down toward Nablus to break al-Kamil’s supply lines. I have my allies in strange quarters. It was wise to send him an embassy. I didn’t know why at the time, but it was a good thing. More pressure on al-Kamil to end the standoff. And just that afternoon Frederick had sent a messenger to Tommaso in the Sultan’s court at Nablus, telling him that Frederick was willing to leave the Haramu’sh-Sharif in Jerusalem under Moslem control if al-Kamil gave him the rest of the city. It was cheaper to bargain with somebody else’s goods—the Haramu’sh-Sharif contained the Dome of the Rock and Solomon’s Temple, sacred to Islam. Tommaso had said the talks were moving along, but the Archbishop in an independent message had been less optimistic. Which do I believe?

  Tomorrow . . . They had the slaves from some of the ships, and they’d found one block of buildings close to the palace that remained almost intact, and they had to start working on the wall. Someday al-Kamil has to tell me, one way or the other. A surge of desperation rushed through him. Please, God—Even if it doesn’t please God. He grinned at that, and the amusement took the edge off his nerves. When he stood up, the third group of attendants moved in the shadows, and when he left they followed, lighting his way to Theophano’s bed.

  “Are you sure we ought to take her?” Fulk whispered. “This is mad. We’re bound to get caught.”

  “Oh, shut up. What if we get caught, so what?” Frederick bent down and crawled out the hole in the wall. They could easily have left through the front gate of the palace, but the whole idea was to escape. Outside in the dark street he moved to the side and let the others through. “We haven’t ever gotten caught before, have we?”

  “He’s mad,” Ezzo said. He crept out the hole and reached inside to help Theophano. “This isn’t Sicily. What if there’s a Templar down there?”

  “That’s part of the fun.” He looked around—the street was lit with torches at regular intervals. Empty and walled off, it reminded him of that street in Acre, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Theophano stood beside him, shoving her hair back under her cap.

  Fulk s
aid, “You’re right, this isn’t Sicily, in Sicily we could get horses.” He started off down the street, and Frederick followed, his arm around Theophano. Ezzo, muttering, trailed along behind them.

  Theophano laughed, and against his side and arm she moved gently, pressing herself close to him. “What if people recognize you and see you fondling your page?”

  “Give them something to talk about.” Fulk was wearing a sword; so was Ezzo, and they both looked and sounded nervous. He said to Theophano, “We do this all the time in Sicily, it’s fun.”

  At the corner they turned right onto the main street. The breeze from the harbor smelled of salt and rotting seaweed. Frederick lengthened his stride, pulling Theophano along with him. Hooded and cloaked, paying them no attention, a pair of knights passed them, headed for the new barracks. Most of these buildings, squat and flat-roofed, had been repaired, and he supposed pilgrims were living in them, but they all belonged to Frederick. A monk stood outside one, trying futilely to light a lamp that had gone out—some of the German pilgrims had even strung greenery over their doors. The road sloped down to the harbor, and Fulk slipped and swore and walked short on the smooth cobblestones.

  In the dark the city looked finished, old and well worn. They walked beneath the arch where the Assassin had seen the Templar, and in the shadows a girl giggled and a man spoke softly and gently. When we came here Jaffa was dead, only a few hundred people lived here, but now . . . and it’s only been a couple of weeks. Ahead, down the hill, he could see the white of sea foam and the rocking lights of the galleys anchored along the quays. He hugged Theophano.

  Structures. He watched two young men trot up toward them and jog past, shouting to each other in German. He wondered how many people there had to be in a group before it could reconstruct its own way of life in a foreign place. One person wouldn’t do it; he’d just blend in, do what the natives did. Through his mind ran a quick image of a man cased in an invisible structure of his habits. Maybe you have to have other people around who understand what the things that you do mean. Up ahead, Fulk turned into an alley.

  “No trash,” Theophano said.

  “Right.”

  The one mark of how new this part of Jaffa was. But we have whorehouses and taverns and criminals already. He pushed at the thought; there had to be some order, some revelation in it that would be useful in ruling. The alley was warmer than the street. Outside a door they stopped and looked at each other and Fulk knocked.

  “Ezzo. Do you remember when we brought all the Saracens in from the island to Lucera?”

  Ezzo nodded. “Ten thousand of them. It was amazing.”

  “How long did it take them to settle down?”

  “What did you do that for?” Theophano said.

  “Not very long,” Ezzo said. “A year.”

  “Less than that. I’ll ask Ayub.”

  The door opened and they went into a room blazing with lights, packed with tables and sailors and whores and thieves. It stank of wine. Frederick took a quick look around, saw nobody he recognized, and plowed after Fulk through the mob to, a table. Heavy voices jarred in his ears; somebody took a step backward and crashed into him, and without thinking he shoved back. Theophano clutched at his coat with both hands so she wouldn’t get separated from him. At the table, Fulk whipped out his sword and slammed it down on the wood, and several people standing nearby spun around. Fulk glared at them, warning them away, and stripped off his coat.

  “This is—” Ezzo said, quit, and sank down. “At least we can get drunk.”

  Pulling chairs around, Frederick made Theophano sit with her back to the wall, and sat down next to her. A boy with a black eye trotted through the mob toward them.

  “Do you have wine or beer?” Fulk shouted over the din. Frederick laughed at him, and he blushed. He’d spoken Greek; they’d been using Greek because Theophano spoke no Italian. The boy looked blank.

  “Bring us some wine,” Frederick said in German. He took out his purse and dropped it on the table.

  The boy repeated, “Wine,” and ran off again. In front of the table, practically on top of Ezzo, a big sailor threw his arms wide, roaring, and spilled a wooden cup full of beer. Some of the beer splashed on Ezzo, who leapt up, turning, and grabbed the sailor by the shirt.

  Fulk groaned and slouched back in his chair. Ezzo was screaming in Italian into the sailor’s face, and the sailor and his friends were screaming back in lingua franca. Arms waved. Theophano leaned over and whispered, “Are you going to let him get in a fight?”

  Frederick laughed. “That’s the whole idea.” He stood up and yelled, “Do you need any help, Ezzo?”

  Ezzo didn’t even look around. He was pounding his fist on the sailor’s chest; his face turned bright red with anger. It was so hot the sweat poured down the sailor’s face, cutting channels through the dirt. Frederick pulled off his coat and threw it across his chair.

  One of the sailor’s friends grabbed Ezzo by the sleeve and cocked his fist back. Before he could throw the punch, before Ezzo could move to meet him, a gigantic black man wearing nothing but a loincloth burst in between them. Theophano murmured something to Fulk. The black thrust Ezzo and the sailor’s friend apart, looking down from an immense height at each of them, his face expressionless. Ezzo looked up and his eyes bulged. The black stood head and shoulders taller than he did. With a jerky little bow Ezzo turned and sat down again.

  “Who is that?”

  The black looked down at Ezzo, glared around once at the sailor and his friends, and turned to Frederick. “Sit down,” he said, in the lingua franca. “No trouble. If you give me any trouble, you leave.” His jaw muscles clenched momentarily, and with a snort he turned and plunged back through the crowd. Frederick sank down, delighted.

  “Fulk. Who is that?”

  “He runs this block of taverns. His name is Mutu and he’s from Africa somewhere and he can take your head like this”—Fulk spread his hand around the back of Theophano’s head—“and crunch. And he doesn’t like trouble. I thought it would be safer here.”

  “Well,” Frederick said. “We’ll have to give Mutu some trouble.”

  “He’ll kill you,” Theophano said. “Don’t.”

  The boy with the black eye brought them their wine, and Fulk paid him and sent him back for a ewer. Theophano made sure her hair was still stuffed under the cap.

  “Where’s he from?” Ezzo said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “He came down from Acre, I think,” Theophano said.

  “Mutu is famous. He was in Constantinople once when I was there, and somebody told me al-Mu’azzam ran him out of Damascus for selling opium.”

  “Opium,” Frederick said. He started to grin, and Fulk shut his eyes.

  The sailor and his friends had moved off, but now the man who had nearly hit Ezzo came back, glowering. “You and I have a—”

  “Any time,” Ezzo said, and stood up and hit him. His fist caught the sailor right in the mouth, and blood spurted in gouts across the man’s chest—he fell back into a table with a crash of wood. The crowd screamed. Like a school of fish they churned around, looking for Mutu, making room for the fallen sailor. He sat up and spat out two teeth. Ezzo reached for his wine cup and drained it and started to stand up again.

  “Here comes Mutu,” Frederick said. He glanced at Theophano.

  Ezzo sank back into his chair and fell into deep conversation with Fulk. The sailor gathered himself, flexing his hands, and charged for Ezzo. From behind him a gigantic black arm reached out, took him by the hair, and lifted him completely off the ground. The crowd roared, surging back and forth in the narrow space. Mutu towed off the sailor screaming across and through the packed bodies of the mob and never glanced at Ezzo.

  Frederick leaped up on the table to watch. “Jesus. He’s incredible. What else can he do?”

  Theophano said, “Let me out a moment. I see someone I know.” She got up and slithered into the mob. Frederick jumped up and down on the table top. />
  “Here he comes again.” Frederick got down from the table. Mutu had seen him and was plowing through the crowd, which gave him all the room they could. Ezzo shifted his chair closer to the wall. Mutu strode up and cocked his head, looking at Frederick, his hands on his hips.

  “I saw you standing on the table. Why did you do that? I don’t like people standing on the tables.”

  Standing up, Frederick had to put his head all the way back to look into Mutu’s eyes. He said, “I was curious.”

  “Haven’t ..I seen you someplace before?” Mutu’s eyes narrowed.

  Frederick put his hands on his hips. “Maybe.”

  Theophano was coming back, looking even less like a page than before: the men were staring at her. Mutu said, “Don’t give me any shit, you.” He poked Frederick in the chest with one finger. “Just don’t—” He saw Theophano and his eyes widened. “Theo.” His hand reached out for her, and Frederick knocked it down.

  “She’s with me, Mutu.”

  Mutu reared back. “She’s an old friend of mine, she’s a new friend of yours.”

  Frederick reached out, grabbed Theophano by the arm, and hauled her around behind him, knocking over a chair. “I said she’s with me, Mutu.”

  “Can’t I even talk to—” Mutu took him by the arm to pull him away, and Frederick locked his fingers around Mutu’s wrist to take his hand off him. The size of the black’s arm astonished him; the muscle was hard as bone. Mutu frowned, and his other hand came up.

  Fulk smashed his sword down on the table top again. Mutu looked around and saw him and Ezzo on their feet, crouched. His eyes widened. Jerking his head around toward Theophano, he said, “What is this?”

  Theophano said, “Don’t hurt him and let him do what he wants, or you’ll get killed. Red, let him sit with us, I want to talk to him.”

  Frederick and Mutu let go of each other, and while Mutu brought over a stool Frederick sat down. The ends of his fingers still felt how strong Mutu was. Fulk and Ezzo relaxed.