The Book of Whispers

by Kimberley Starr

  ‘Suzan…’ I begin.

  But she’s transfixed by the three women. The second of them, the one who was passed the eyeball, pushes it into her eye socket, then turns to face us. The eyeball rolls around until it focuses. The woman’s mouth hangs open, full of black teeth, like the charred remains of a campfire.

  The women laugh, all together. The second of them extracts the eyeball from her collapsed face and passes it to the third. She pushes it into place and turns to face us.

  ‘You see them? What are they?’ Suzan demands.

  ‘I’ve had no one to ask. I think they’re a kind of demon.’

  ‘Demon?’

  ‘Demon. Suzan, I’ve done a terrible thing. I started seeing them all the time once I read the book. I should have guessed this would happen to you too!’

  I wait for her reaction. Surely she’ll be resentful, even furious? She looks shocked, but not angry. And she’s brave. Soon her face takes on a determined expression, her jaw clenching.

  I watch her carefully for signs of continuing panic but, recovered from her fright, Suzan merely nods. ‘I’ve seen red eyes before,’ she says, slowly.

  ‘In your convent?’

  ‘In the face of a priest.’

  A demon priest? I gaze up at the stars that swirl above us and consider the implications of that.

  ‘I think those women are called gorgons,’ I say at last. ‘They’re mentioned in myths I’ve read.’

  Suzan is thoughtful for a long time. She looks back to the camp, her eyes taking in scattered campfires and people bustling between them; horses who pace, preparing to sleep; demons hovering over saddles and flying over tents. ‘Other people don’t see them?’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t be sure. People don’t talk about them.’

  ‘But there are gorgons in mythology.’

  ‘I know. I’ve wondered about that. I think most creatures in mythology are really demons. People must have seen them sometimes. Not straight on. Not the way we can. Unless there are other objects like the book—other things that act like curtains, opening the demon world right up to people. But people must have seen their faces from the corner of their eyes, or reflected in puddles.’

  ‘Or like I did when I saw through Eser’s disguise. I thought I was terrified into being a bit mad. I thought the problem was with my mind.’

  ‘That is what I think. It’s one reason why so many demons are like legends.’

  Suzan brightens. ‘Might the book have answers about what the demons are? What they want?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I take her hand once more. ‘We’ll have to go back to find out. Near the large demon.’

  ‘It’s attached to the book?’ Suzan asks.

  ‘They all seem to be attached to something.’

  She nods. ‘It hasn’t actually hurt you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  We walk back to my tent. Tutivillus stands, silently watching. Beside me, Suzan pretends not to see. She sits beside the book. I open it and she prepares to read. Her finger shakes on the vellum, but she controls her fears well, even when Tutivillus sniffs around her shoulders like a suspicious dog. She must be the bravest person I have ever known.

  ‘What can you find about Thanatos?’ I ask.

  ‘I saw his name.’ She flicks through the vellum sheets and finds a line of faded ink. ‘A lot of this looks like lists,’ Suzan says, turning more pages. ‘Recipes or rhymes?’

  ‘That’s what I thought the poem was.’

  ‘I think that first poem’s more of a prediction.’ Suzan stands and takes my hand, dragging me away from the book and Tutivillus.

  ‘I don’t want them to hear us, Luca. We need to learn about them.’

  Us. We. The word we thrills me. I’m not alone with this anymore. And she’s still holding my hand.

  ‘I think you’re right. The book is counting down. Maybe the demons plan something in Jerusalem. Something dangerous. And it’s up to us to figure out what.’

  CHAPTER 9

  Twenty-four moons

  ON THE ROAD

  Suzan

  Colours were the first things I noticed here. The red and gold falcons on Luca’s shield. Other banners of blue, gold, grass-green and fire-red mark out each family’s territory. Many carry images: lions, swans, bears, castle gates, fish, the moon and the sun, creatures as strange as demons.

  And demons exist! In all sizes, from small as farm birds to large as horses. Some have two legs, others have four, six, eight. Their leathery skin varies in colour from coppery to light green, with a metallic sheen. Some have oily feathers. Many have clawed feet. All have red, shiny eyes. And all are invisible to everyone except Luca and me.

  While the stars wheel overhead, I dream of demons and I dream of Luca and I lie awake, in between my dreams, wondering about demons and Serafina and marriage promises. If Luca’s family want him to marry Serafina, he may have no choice.

  In my dreams, I whisper to Luca and touch him in mysterious ways. Dreamed Luca says things to dreaming Suzan, things that I would blush to hear in waking life.

  I do blush, in the morning, to remember. I miss my mother more than ever because there’s no one to go to for advice.

  ‘The creatures on your ivory horn,’ I say to Luca after matins. ‘They’re real demons. Did you carve them?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Father found it in Jerusalem last time he was there.’

  ‘Whoever did those carvings saw demons too.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ve seen them for a long time? Do they always make you feel so…sick?’

  ‘The nausea passes with time.’ Luca looks grim. ‘Suzan, I shouldn’t have let you read the book. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. No one should have to see these things on their own.’

  ‘You’re so brave!’

  ‘Brave?’ I don’t feel brave. ‘I just need to get used to it, I suppose. Maybe it’s like seasickness. Though I’ve never been at sea. I felt an earthquake once.’

  ‘Your body gets used to the strangeness. Eventually.’

  For the following two nights, despite exhaustion from days on the road, my recurring dream is red and full of blood. I want to share it, but it’s too vague. Even if I could tell the Princes that I fear we ride into conflict, they’d laugh and say, Of course. We are, after all, an army.

  The next evening, walking back from the latrines outside the main camp and anonymous in my black cloak, I pass behind a group of knights laughing about Luca.

  ‘He’s so in love with that ugly nun,’ one of them says.

  ‘She’s put some enchantment on him, that’s the only explanation,’ another replies.

  I burn with embarrassment. Everyone says Serafina is beautiful. But I’m ugly. My mother said life was safer this way. I wonder how life might be for women like Lady Bianca, who walks past wolf-whistles. I touch my face, my fingers moving over my nose, my lips.

  I think of Luca. His chainmail, gleaming like jewels, his sword, moving against him as he rides. His thick brown hair, the straightness of his back. The slightest touch of Luca’s fingers is an unbearable reminder of the way he touches me in my dreams. I wish I wasn’t ugly!

  Luca opens the book for me when I ask. I read, letting the vellum pages fall open at random. I don’t understand all it says. At first, I’m careful what I say in front of Tutivillus. But the book’s demon soon loses interest in us and dozes.

  ‘The book mentions Nicea, it mentions Antioch,’ I say.

  ‘Where we’ve been, and where we’re going…and that prophecy about thirty moons. It’s counting down as we go. It’s meant for us! A message about demons…’

  We return to the book and I continue to read, carefully, page after page. Finally my eyes stumble across the word that interests us.

  ‘Here.’ I touch some letters arranged beneath an image of shields in the shape of teardrops. Their grouping gives the impression the earth is crying. A strange sensation of life pulses up through my han
d, as though the fine vellum were still a living animal’s skin.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It says demons…’ I pause. ‘It says creatures of smoke—that’s the expression my mother used to use!—are immortal, but not physical. They can’t taste or smell or feel, because they don’t have bodies, they need to be—I think the word is tethered, or maybe it says chained—to something solid.’

  ‘Those cords,’ Luca says. ‘They’re why demons are connected to valuable things. So people won’t leave them behind.’

  He’s right. Demons are attached to things people treat as sacred and precious. That fact must be important. ‘That’s what the poem’s been telling us!’ I realise. ‘Demons want to escape their tethers. They want physical forms. They want human bodies. They think they can win them, in Jerusalem.’

  The next page shows a four-legged beaked demon attached to an old leather chair. I spend a few moments translating the picture’s heading. These aren’t words I often spoke with my mother.

  ‘What does it say?’ Luca asks.

  ‘Demons are like angels. Not in their nature but in their creation. Like angels, they are beings of air. Human beings are creatures of ashes and dust. We have physical form. We can feel and taste. But the price we pay for this is…’ I stop.

  ‘What is it?’ Luca asks. ‘What price?’

  ‘The price we pay for being able to feel…is death.’

  Luca swallows. ‘And demons want this?’

  I continue reading. ‘Some of them nearly have human form. They can make themselves be seen. But their human appearance is a disguise and they still can’t feel.’

  ‘They want bodies,’ Luca says.

  ‘Maybe the charm they want to perform in Jerusalem will make them immortal too.’

  Luca looks grim. ‘I don’t want to find out.’

  I read further, and finally find the charm I’ve been looking for. ‘This one,’ I say, pointing at the page, ‘tells us how to defeat a demon.’

  ‘They can be defeated?’

  ‘No—it’s the words again. I mean weakened. Unmasked. It’s not easy. The book says we need to know their names. They can only be subdued one at a time. Except in Jerusalem. There’s something different there. I can’t work out what. Something that involves the book, and the right herbs and incantations.’

  ‘What herbs?’

  ‘I’ll read.’

  To unmask a demon in disguise

  use ginger to expose its eyes.

  Red ribbon next will make it halt.

  Sprinkle its silver skin with salt.

  Then cinnamon, nettle, apple seeds

  will end the shadow that it needs.

  Mugwort, plantain, chamomile

  remove from it the skill of guile.

  A mirror then completes the matter.

  Trap the mask and watch it shatter.

  Beware!

  With no true life, no real thing dies

  (but it’s powerless without disguise).

  Luca’s eyes widen as he listens. ‘This is what we’ve been looking for.’

  ‘It won’t be easy.’ I hold my finger over some words. ‘Some herbs will be hard to find. Mirrors are expensive. And we don’t stay places long enough to grow anything.’

  Luca’s eyes remain bright. I wish I could be so confident.

  ‘I think it’s what we’re meant to do!’ Luca says. ‘I think this is why we’re here!’

  I turn another page. My finger pauses over the first word I find. ‘Where are we heading for, this sevennight? Is it Dorylaeum?’

  Luca nods. ‘Why?’

  ‘There’ll be a battle,’ I read. ‘No…an ambush.’

  Luca stands.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

  ‘We must tell the Princes. Adhemar needs to know.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Luca looks doubtful. Despite his talk of Matilda, Margrave of Tuscany, all leaders here are men. Matilda herself, like Luca’s stepmother, has stayed at home.

  ‘Won’t he listen to a woman?’ I ask.

  From the look on his face, I know this is exactly what Luca thinks. ‘I’ve still only seen Adhemar from a distance myself,’ he begins.

  ‘Luca, I’m coming with you.’

  He doesn’t have a choice. I trudge beside him between the pitched tents.

  Guards bar the entrance to Adhemar’s checked blue and gold pavilion. Each holds a lance flying Adhemar’s colours. They cross them as we approach.

  ‘Adhemar is doing his best to replicate his bishop’s palace, in a tent,’ Luca observes. He barely pauses. ‘Luca de Falconi, seeking an audience with Bishop Adhemar.’

  The guards raise their lances and step aside. Luca and I walk through.

  It’s like stepping into another world. I blink. An immense candelabrum with at least two hundred candles casts a flickering glow over a carpet-laden floor and heavy oak furniture. So this is what those long oxcarts transport? How ridiculous to be carrying so much heavy furniture, when people suffer on foot!

  A demon slithers from beneath the table it’s tethered to, head cocked and three eyes blinking. A clicking noise grows in its throat. It’s as tall as a large cat, but as long as a snake. It shouldn’t be here, in the tent of a man famed for his holiness.

  I look at the guards. They’re oblivious, as are the dozen or so people standing near us. The muscles in Luca’s arm tighten around the book. Tutivillus and the table demon acknowledge each other with a blink and a puff of smoke around their heads. Nearby, a priest in a long black robe peers down his nose at the two of us.

  ‘Young Sir Luca. What business do you have here? Bishop Adhemar is busy. It’s nearly time for vespers.’

  ‘I know. I know where Saracens will catch up with us. It’s a place called Dorylaeum—’

  The priest sighs. ‘Do you know how many prophecies the bishop hears every day? We’ve had twenty battle sites named since noon.’

  ‘He’ll listen to mine,’ Luca says.

  The tall man’s eyes narrow. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I have more than a dream to show him.’

  Luca says no more, but pushes past the others. I wrap a scarf over my hair and cast my eyes down as I follow, hoping I look respectable enough to be allowed to stay.

  Bishop Adhemar is seated between two more guards, upon a large oak chair. He wears long purple robes, like silk carpet. He has a long grey beard and thick, grey hair around a balding pate. A tall hat rests on a small table to his side. The jewels in his rings sparkle in the light of so many candles.

  ‘Your Eminence.’ Luca falls into a low bow.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ There’s no mistaking the impatience in Adhemar’s voice.

  ‘I come with news I have received…’ Luca stumbles, nervous.

  ‘I suppose St Andrew has appeared to you as well? We’ve just heard from Peter Bartholomew. And who are you?’

  ‘Luca de Falconi. Heir to the Conte de Falconi of San Gimignano,’ Luca says. ‘I have this…’

  He pulls the book from under his arm and fumbles with the lock for a moment before it falls open in his hands. He flicks between them, without looking down.

  Bishop Adhemar sighs and summons another churchman. ‘I’m tired of this.’

  ‘See here!’ Luca steps forwards, his finger marking one page.

  ‘Stay there!’ Adhemar’s guards speak at the same time. One moves to Luca and holds his arms out for the book.

  Luca passes it to him. ‘Keep it open.’

  The guard grunts, carrying it to Adhemar.

  ‘It says Saracens wait for us at Dorylaeum,’ Luca says.

  Adhemar frowns. ‘I’ve heard that. Along with two dozen other places. I see nothing about Dorylaeum here. Only scribbles.’

  ‘It’s not written in Latin.’

  ‘I see that. It’s not written in hieroglyphs either. It’s not even written in barbarian runes. I don’t believe it’s writing at all.’

  ‘It is.’ I move closer to
Luca. ‘It’s written in my mother’s language.’

  Adhemar is briefly surprised that I exist. He looks at the guards. ‘You allowed a girl in here?’

  ‘Your Eminence, we didn’t know,’ one of them begins.

  ‘Such an ugly girl,’ another adds. ‘It hardly matters.’

  ‘Your Eminence.’ I copy the way Luca greeted him. ‘I can read the book.’

  Adhemar looks amused. ‘And what language is it you say you can read?’

  I stall. I haven’t thought of this before, but of course languages have names. My mother never needed to name ours to me. ‘I…I don’t know.’

  Adhemar slides his gaze from me to Luca. ‘Do you know?’

  Luca glances over his shoulder at me.

  Adhemar leans forwards in his seat. ‘You only know what the girl tells you?’

  I watch Luca’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. ‘Saracens are waiting for us in Dorylaeum,’ he insists.

  Adhemar sighs. ‘So I hear. Take him away, guards. A book of scribbles is even less useful than a dream.’

  The guard slams the book shut and throws it at Luca before grabbing his arm. The second guard moves towards me.

  ‘For all we know, the girl’s a Saracen spy,’ Adhemar says.

  The guard pauses. I brace, ready to run.

  ‘But let the boy have her,’ Adhemar continues. ‘It’s unlikely such an ugly woman would be sent on that sort of mission. And we have little enough entertainment. I don’t want to take away everyone’s toys.’

  The guards smirk.

  ‘We’ll never be believed,’ Luca says, once we’re outside.

  ‘There’ll be another way! We have the book for a purpose, Luca.’

  He walks around for a while, pulling himself together before we return to his father’s tent. A departing messenger passes, then Luca’s father appears, unrolling a sheet of parchment.

  He reads the message and looks up, frowning. ‘You went to the Bishop with something you say you read from that book?’

  ‘We did read it!’ Luca says. ‘Suzan can read it…’

  His father sighs. ‘Or she says she can. Luca, this is the second time I’ve received messages about your alarming behaviour.’

  ‘I know where Saracens wait to ambush us!’ Luca insists.