The Spirit and the Flesh

by Boyd, Douglas

  As Kassim explained briefly what had happened, the panic died out of his voice to be replaced by a note of triumph, ‘God works in strange ways, my brother. But one thing is certain: the believer is always rewarded for his faith.’

  Salem was coming to hate the pseudo-religious language his brother used; more than anything else it symbolised the gulf that had grown up between them during the years of war. ‘Is this then your reward?’ he scoffed. ‘Where is it written that the believer shall be torn to pieces by dogs?’

  ‘My injury is the result of my own carelessness.’ Kassim clutched his injured leg. ‘But my reward is that my enemy has been delivered into my hands.’

  Salem took his eyes off the road for a moment and saw in the light of a passing car that his brother’s eyes were bright with fanaticism, or delirium, he was not sure which. Was Kassim in shock? he wondered. If so, he should keep him talking.

  ‘The enemy?’ he asked cautiously.

  Kassim laughed wildly. ‘The fornicator! The American with his whore! He is the key to the whole thing. And to think: I had him in my power!’

  There was exaltation in the voice that sounded like madness to Salem.

  ‘What American? What whore?’ he asked in exasperation. ‘We are here because of an ancestor who died three centuries before America was discovered. The tile contained no mention of Americans and whores.’

  Kassim ignored the remark. ‘His name is Freeman. I knew his face the second I saw it. He was my captive in Beirut until the Jews rescued him, on the day I received this.’ He touched the shoulder still covered in scar tissue.

  Salem concentrated on his driving. ‘When was all this?’

  ‘Nearly ten years ago,’ said Kassim, ‘during the siege of Beirut. Do you not see, my brother, how this is yet another proof that our ancestor foresaw everything? Absolutely everything!’

  Chapter 6

  They dined by candlelight. A dozen guttering tallow candles in a wrought-iron candelabrum threw a warm amber glow over the oaken table and chairs, the white walls with their dark panelling and the arms and armour that decorated them.

  The food was served by one of the blond guards. In the poor light it was impossible to distinguish which one, or what exactly he was serving onto Jay’s and Merlin’s plates. Kreuz prowled about the room as he ate his usual diet of nuts and fruit, chewing each one separately and talking to himself as though in a reverie. With the cowl of his cape raised and half-covering his head, he looked like a mad monk.

  ‘Fricking Rasputin himself,’ Merlin whispered to Jay, with a grimace of revulsion at his plate, on which a brown island of nut cutlet was being engulfed by a yellowish mud slide of lentils.

  Jay touched a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t think about it. Just eat,’ she advised in a whisper.

  The next time Kreuz’s orbit brought him near to the table, he placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘In addition to being a great queen, Miss French,’ he murmured, ‘your ancestor possessed a great intellect and reputedly also telepathic gifts. King Henry preferred to believe that she had a network of spies throughout the kingdom bringing her the latest news, but Henry was paranoid, which is why he survived so long. For myself, having examined all the evidence, I am inclined to believe that she did have supernatural powers.’

  Merlin ate a pomegranate. That and the wine in the large carafe in front of his place were the only things on the table he could stomach. To his mind, Kreuz’s monologue was getting weirder and weirder. He was resuming some abstruse scholastic disagreement he had had years before, ending: ‘But in my humble opinion, Miss French, what the chroniclers say does not make sense.’

  ‘What do they say, Dr Kreuz?’ asked Merlin, unable to follow. ‘I may have missed something.’

  ‘That Eleanor retired to the abbey of Fontevraud after Richard’s death and stayed there in pious retreat until she died.’ Kreuz was on his knees, looking more than ever monk-like as he pulled an ancient leather-bound tome from a low bookshelf. He lifted it onto a lectern lit by a pair of candles and leafed through the thick parchment pages, hunting for something.

  ‘The fact is that during the last four years of her life Eleanor left the abbey of Fontevraud several times.’ His voice was hardly audible as he leaned over the book. ‘Indeed, within the year of Richard’s death she was in Spain at the court of Castile where she arranged the marriage of one of her granddaughters to Crown Prince Philip of France. That much is a matter of record. I’m talking of Princess Blanca of Castile, better known as Queen Blanche, of course. During her visit to Spain, Eleanor went missing for two months.’

  He looked from one to the other of his guests, to see whether they had understood the importance of what he had just said. ‘The chroniclers are vague on this, but I have proof that during this time she visited the Moorish court at Granada incognita. That was strange and dangerous business for a Christian woman of even half Eleanor’s age, albeit in time of truce!’

  His eyes stayed on Jay’s face, seeking some reaction. ‘Why should an old woman do that, do you think? Why should she travel all the way to the south of Spain on a journey that entailed going several hundred miles through Moorish territory? Can you imagine what that meant in those days, on horseback over appalling roads or none at all? The big question is: what was Eleanor seeking here in Andalucia? What did the Moors have that was so precious to her?’

  Jay’s mood had changed. The atmosphere in the candlelit room, the silence, the clothes that she and Kreuz were wearing, all seemed to exclude Merlin who belonged to another century. As the evening passed, she realised that Kreuz was talking to her alone.

  ‘North of the Pyrenees, Miss French,’ he intoned, ‘twelfth-century Europe lay in darkness and squalor. There, ignorance was called God’s holy work and learning was regarded as witchcraft. Yet here in the fertile soil of the Moorish kingdoms flowered all the ancient arts and sciences of Egypt, Greece and Rome.’

  Merlin watched the effect Kreuz’s words were having on Jay. She followed the monk-like mumbling figure with her eyes and did not look at Merlin even when he nudged her gently under the table.

  ‘What do you think?’ Kreuz asked her. ‘Did Eleanor come here for instruction in the new sciences of architecture, algebra and astronomy? Or perhaps to have her horoscope cast? We know from her own letters that she consulted astrologers before any important event.’

  ‘What do you think, Doctor?’ asked Merlin.

  Kreuz turned to the last page of the book in front of him. His index finger traced the very last line. ‘When Eleanor died, Miss French, the chroniclers recorded simply, In hoc anno obiit Alianor.’

  Jay had said little all evening. She translated this line quietly: ‘In this year, Eleanor died.’

  Kreuz’s eyes dwelled on her. ‘Not much of an epitaph for the most influential single European of the whole Middle Ages. So what was she doing, those last five years of her life?’

  Merlin stood up, irritated by Kreuz’s scholarly mannerisms. ‘If you can’t tell us, who can? I think it’s time for bed.’ He put out a hand for Jay. Kreuz moved swiftly and came between them with a slim carved wooden case which he laid on the table in front of Jay.

  ‘A small gift for Miss French,’ he said. ‘Before you go, please accept this token of my gratitude for the pleasure your presence has given me tonight.’

  Jay opened the case. Inside, lying on the green velvet lining, was a set of recorders, exquisitely hand made in ebony and ivory.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ she said, lifting the descant recorder out and fitting the parts together.

  Kreuz hesitated. With his head on one side and his hands placed together, he looked like an obsequious monk craving a favour from some great lady. ‘We could perhaps play a duet together before you retire for the night?’ He picked up another recorder. ‘If it would not embarrass you to play with a mere amateur?’

  Jay looked at Merlin, hand outstretched to her, waiting. ‘I’d like that very much,’ she said.

  Merlin sank back
onto his chair and poured another large glass of wine. The carafe, he saw, was nearly empty.

  ‘Brandenburg Four?’ suggested Kreuz. It was a piece of music he had practised for years, against just this moment. He tuned his instrument to Jay’s.

  He was, she thought, surprisingly good for an amateur. The musician in him, unlike the man, was attentive and responsive: he knew the music well enough to follow where she led.

  Merlin up-ended the carafe over his glass. He had drunk too much that night. He felt angry at Jay and would have left, but there was no question of making his own way back to the guest house through the dark and past the Dobermans.

  When the music had ended, Jay’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. Kreuz’s face too was bathed in pleasure. She put the recorder back into its case. Merlin drained the glass. His anger had faded with the music; he felt very drowsy and wanted to head for bed. He listened to Kreuz speaking to Jay in what sounded to him like Catalan.

  ‘May we play one more before you leave?’ Kreuz asked.

  Why not? thought Jay. The recorder he had given her was a joy to play and Kreuz was an excellent amateur musician.

  ‘There’s a song of the Third Crusade which I love,’ he suggested. ‘Chanterai por mon coratge. You know it, I expect. It lies very well on two recorders.’

  They played the duet and several other pieces of the same period. The room grew steadily darker. By this time Merlin was dozing in his chair at the table. He woke up to find Kreuz gone and Jay standing by Dieter with his lamp, waiting to walk back to the guest house.

  Halfway there, the lights came back on. The cold air sobered Merlin fast. After Dieter had bidden them goodnight, Merlin yawned. ‘I’m so glad you had a good time.’

  Jay slipped the wimple off and shook out her hair. ‘It was quite a rare experience, to play with an amateur and be able to make music together. You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. I also don’t understand why I fell asleep like that.’

  ‘As Leila would say: troppo vino!’

  Merlin disagreed peevishly. ‘I can hold my liquor. It wasn’t that. Unless there was something in the wine.’

  Jay laughed.

  ‘There’s one thing,’ said Merlin. ‘I also don’t understand how you were suddenly able to completely exclude me from the conversation by talking Spanish with Kreuz. You said you couldn’t speak it.’

  ‘That wasn’t Spanish.’ Jay laughed at him again; she found his sulking amusing. ‘We were talking medieval Langue d’Oc.’

  ‘You were what?’

  ‘The language of Eleanor’s time.’

  ‘Kreuz can speak that stuff?’

  ‘Fluently,’ she said. ‘The more I learn, the more I realise that Dr Kreuz is a most extraordinary man.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘I was right to shoot the pix last night.’ Merlin threw the bags into the back of Jay’s car angrily. ‘And I sure as hell am not hanging around here all day, waiting for Kreuz to return from wherever he pissed off to in that fancy helicopter of his, just after day-break.’

  ‘You were so rude to him last night at dinner, Merlin,’ said Jay.

  ‘Dinner?’ he snorted at the memory of the meal. ‘I’m supposed to say thank you for a plateful of crap?’

  ‘Well, I thought Dr Kreuz was a very gracious host. I don’t know why you’re so hostile to him. This is his home and we’re his guests. He doesn’t have to be grilled by some aggressive reporter if he doesn’t want to.’

  ‘Whose side are you on?’ Merlin asked. ‘Kreuz conned us into coming here to see a crappy mirror and a goblet.’

  ‘It was a marriage vase.’

  ‘And probably a fake.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  Merlin paused; he had no reason for his suspicions, except a gut reaction that told him Kreuz was a fraud of some description – a clever one, but a fraud all the same.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said, head cocked and listening. ‘D’you hear that chugging noise? That’s a diesel generator or I’m Jane Fonda. There was no power cut last night. I think that blackout spiel was just a typically Kreuzian way of not letting us see too much of what he’s got stashed away here.’ He slammed the boot lid shut.

  ‘It’s beautiful here.’ Jay stretched, enjoying the sun on her bare arms. ‘And Kreuz said we were welcome to stay on for a couple of days, if we wanted to. What’s it matter if the food’s a bit peculiar and our host has to go and do some work?’

  She moved close to him invitingly. ‘You weren’t so angry yesterday afternoon. Why don’t we just lock the door on the inside and …’

  ‘Get in,’ Merlin snapped. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I’m going to do some checking up on our friendly host.’

  Jay was puzzled. How could the man who had spent hours making love to her yesterday, be so angry and so unloving today?

  Merlin drove the Alpine so savagely over the bumps that she threatened to get out, halfway up the track: ‘This is my car, Merlin. If you want to re-grade Dr Kreuz’s roadway, go and get yourself a bulldozer.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Merlin calmed down slightly and stopped the car. ‘This place and guy who owns it are both bugging me pretty bad. Do you want to drive?’

  ‘The way you’re acting this morning, we’ll be safer. What’s got into you?’ Jay manoeuvred her legs around the gear stick and moved into the driving seat.

  Merlin had just closed the passenger door when one of the dogs was sniffing at the car window. He started with surprise. ‘Where in hell did that beast spring from?’

  Jay shuddered and let in the clutch. ‘You’re right, Merl. This place is creepy, but, for my sake, just try and unwind.’

  In the mirror Jay saw the dog loping along the track after them. With her hand on the horn, she kept going straight at the boom across the track by the gate house. It swung up just ahead of the car’s bumper and they drove past the two blond guards who watched them go with eyes as expressionless as the Doberman’s.

  *

  The engine under the bonnet of the Subaru pickup would have surprised the manufacturer. Kassim had no trouble keeping Jay’s car in sight on the sparsely used local roads. With so few turn offs, it was not even necessary to keep the target car in view all the time. He had insisted on driving, despite the pain in his injured leg. They were entering Antequera, the first large town on the road to Granada, when Salem said. ‘Look behind, my brother. We are being followed.’

  Kassim swore.

  ‘A black BMW, two hundred metres back,’ Salem announced. Anyone who had lived through the civil war in Beirut checked the other vehicles on the road automatically.

  ‘I see it.’ Kassim looked in the door mirror. He was angry that the pain in his leg had stopped him seeing the other car first.

  ‘Are these some more of your mysterious friends?’ Salem asked.

  Kassim wrenched the wheel over and bumped onto the forecourt of a service station where they waited in the shade on the far side of a pump island until the BMW had passed. Inside were two of the blond guards from Kreuz’s estate.

  ‘They are not following us,’ said Kassim. ‘They too are following the American.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  Kassim gave his brother a wolfish grin. ‘We follow them. They will make our job easier for us.’

  *

  After the lunar isolation of the Valle de los Cantos, Granada was back to modern life with a vengeance: traffic jams, pollution, noise and hustle. To avoid the jams, Merlin map-read Jay through the narrow one-way streets of the old town. It was quicker than using the wider main thoroughfares of the city centre which were congested with traffic. They pulled up outside a parador, one of the government-owned luxury hotels dotted thinly over the map of Spain like a minor rash.

  This one was a converted monastery, built around a Moorish courtyard garden where fountains played and two peacocks strutted along the gravel paths. Apart from electric ligh
t, there seemed to be no modern intrusions. A porter walked ahead of Jay and Merlin, wheeling their bags on a squeaking trolley. He bumped up the stairs to the gallery that ran round the courtyard and led them off it and down long, wide, empty corridors until he stopped and opened the door of a bedroom. It was vast by modern hotel standards, with a polished terracotta tiled floor and white walls against which the sombre black traditional furniture stood out like props on a stage set. The adjoining bathroom, with its enormous deep bath and Victorian plumbing, was almost as big.

  The porter threw open a window and heaved at the heavy shutters. As they creaked open, Jay saw the Alhambra sitting on its hill above the town. In the hard sunlight the crenellated outline of the building was like a cardboard cutout against the pure blue sky. On this side of the parador, the noise of the city’s traffic was muted. The quiet timelessness of the scene made her wonder which was real: the modern hustle through which she had been driving or the fairy tale landscape in front of her.

  Merlin tipped the porter who closed the door and left them alone.

  ‘Come and see this,’ called Jay at the window.

  ‘Later,’ said Merlin. ‘I’ve got some calls to make.’ He had been preoccupied on the journey.

  ‘Please,’ Jay insisted. ‘This is beautiful, Merlin. Your phone calls can wait.’

  He grunted something indistinct with his back to her and the view. Jay listened to him on the phone asking for old buddies whose numbers he carried everywhere in his address book. Everyone he called seemed to be out of town. At last Merlin slammed down the telephone in frustration. ‘Well, that’s just about the last guy in the world I’d ask for a favour. Bill Guzman, Mexican expat. He used to be a good newsman.’

  ‘He’s a reporter?’

  ‘A stringer. A local guy who covers small stories or midwifes the big ones until the heavy brigade hits town.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with him?’