Priest's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  "It is a small matter of some property I have misplaced" the captain said quietly.

  The other man gestured to the table, sliding across a small cup of khave. Hassan waved it away.

  "You will not accept my hospitality? Perhaps you think I mean to poison you?"

  Hassan's lip curled slightly. "I would credit you with more sense than that, Sidi." An over-formal honorific for such a man, in Mehmi's opinion, no matter how much power he wielded.

  "Very well. Your property… four Christians, yes? Escaped from the Suq-al-Birka this afternoon?"

  "You are well informed. I should have guessed as much. Yes. They are somewhere in the city and the Emir has closed the gates to most traffic. I want them - or at least their heads - by the setting of the sun tomorrow. Can you do such a thing?"

  The old man laughed.

  "Of course, my friend Turk. I could have them for you before sun-up tomorrow if they are, as you say, trapped within the city. But such a thing I do not do from the goodness of my heart; because I am a good man. I have many mouths to feed."

  Hassan waved aside the comment as meaningless.

  "I offer you more silver and gold than you would take in a year of picking off trade caravans. A chest full of Christian treasure. For one day's work."

  "You have my attention."

  "I must be away from Tunis as soon as possible - I can delay only a day or two - but it would vex me to leave without seeing these men dead. I would prefer to take their heads with me. If you deliver them to my ship in the port of Carthage, I will give you treasures that would pay to feed all your mouths until the day the Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him - walks once more. Have we a deal or must I find another?"

  The old man smiled. "You will find no other such man, and unless you know Tunis, you will never locate your property in such a short space of hours. You have a deal, Turk. Know, though, that if we deliver them and you renege on your part, you and your crew will leave Tunis bobbing on the surface of the sea, your limbs separated from your trunks."

  Hassan simply nodded, ignoring the open threat.

  "The treasure is there. Can you deliver?"

  "Most likely" the old man said. "There are but half a dozen places such men could hide in this city. We will root them out in a matter of hours. The only difficulty will come if they have had help from certain quarters. If they were quick and lucky, it is possible that they have already passed beyond the walls before our precious fat Emir sealed the gates, and are even now free men out in the countryside. If this is the case, I cannot deliver them to you so easily."

  Mehmi felt his captain tense at the thought that his slaves might even now be fleeing across the African landscape.

  "If they have been so fortunate, we will come to a further arrangement, though I look forward to seeing you - with a bag of heads - in the morning. Thank you for your time, Sidi Najid."

  With a simple nod of the head, Hassan rose once more, turning and making for the door, his limp once again only in slight evidence, though Mehmi could see the slit in the boot leather that had been hastily patched and the slight discolouration of the blood that had stained it.

  As soon as they were outside the khave house, in the bright street once more, Mehmi cleared his throat.

  "Can we trust them, lord?"

  "As long as there is money in it, they will do as they promised, Mehmi. My only fear is that he is right and they have already slipped from the city. They had to have had aid from those disruptors at the market, and such men may have ways and means."

  Mehmi felt a weight lift from him at the thought that the priest and his friends might be gone forever. "And if they are away, lord? We put them from our minds and return to the fleet?"

  Hassan paused and peered down at his diminutive second.

  "We must indeed return to the fleet, my friend, but I will pay every ducat and lira in that hold for their heads. They will have to run to the end of the world to escape, for Sidi Najid and his cutthroats will pursue them forever if I pay them enough."

  Mehmi nodded, uncertain as to how he felt about that. In a way, he hoped the slaves had escaped the city, for they would then be the problem of Sidi Najid, the master of Tunis' worst criminals, but he would still rather they remained unmolested altogether. Nothing good would come from continuing to pursue the priest-witch.

  Even Etci Hassan Reis was no match for dark magick.

  Chapter Twelve - Of peril and rescue

  Skiouros awoke in a panic from a well of blissful blackness. The light was not brilliant bright, coming apparently from two or three small flames, but was certainly enough to shock after the stygian darkness formed by his eyelids. With an instinctive reaction he sat bolt upright and memory flooded through him, surfing on the wave of pain that accompanied the movement,

  Ah yes.

  Recollection of a wound in his side returned as he slumped back down, whimpering and gritting his teeth.

  "For the love of God, lie still young man" a voice snapped in Italian

  Skiouros opened his screwed-up eyes once more and took in his surroundings through a constant needling of pain in his side. The room was small and cave-like - even sepulchral with its lack of windows. The only holes in the walls were a dark doorway revealing a set of rough steps leading upwards, and a small aperture containing small vessels of liquid. The presence of a high altar with a plain wooden cross hanging above and a wide, low font that was clearly older than anything else in the room confirmed the space's consecration as a church.

  Skiouros tried to voice his surprise, but found that the pain had quite stolen his breath.

  The man standing nearby was very familiar. His hair and beard were matted with blood, and his plain white linen robe was soaked crimson and dark and glistening, but he was without doubt the priest who had set all of this in motion. The pair appeared to be alone.

  "Where am I?"

  The priest smiled and held out his hands in a gesture that encompassed the low room with its half-barrel-shaped ceiling apparently moulded of concrete.

  "This, my young friend, is the grand unified church of Tunis. Welcome to the very heart of our faith."

  "Church? Tunis?"

  The man produced a bowl of water from somewhere below and began to wash the worst gore from his hands. The water was already deep red. Skiouros strained his eyes and noticed the slick of dark red on the floor and the number of discarded cloths all stained crimson.

  "Am I…?"

  "You are almost certainly a very lucky young man. Though most all of the credit must go to the will of the almighty and, of course, a small amount to my own considerable skill as a chirurgeon."

  "I'm very confused. What…?"

  "We brought you here a few hours ago. You took a very bad wound in the side facing your pirate friends, and I have been forced to resurrect - apologies for the terminology, Lord - skills that had long since rusted. It seems I have good recall, fortunately. The sword blow went rather deep and severed a few of the smaller blood tubes but miraculously slid between your gut and your kidney and seems to have missed everything vital. I have dealt with the internal bleeding as best I can and stitched your side - though it is distinctly possible you have just torn some of those stitches."

  "So… so I'll live?" Skiouros asked weakly.

  "Barring infection, pestilence, starvation, Turks and accidents - and the wrath of the Lord for your wickedness - you should make a full recovery."

  "Wickedness?"

  "The impersonation of a priest? I will not delve too deeply into your motives, but know that I disapprove of such an act on an almost monumental scale. Had I known that you were naught but a fake priest I might not have been tempted to risk my diminished flock in aiding you. Clearly God has some purpose for all of this, and so here you are, bleeding onto my table in my church, bringing with you the deepest of dangers."

  Skiouros shook his head blearily.

  "I am weak. Can I stand?"

  "All things are possible in this world.
" Despite his harsh words and disapproving look, the priest held out a hand to help Skiouros. The young Greek very slowly and carefully, and with a great deal of hissing and grunting, swung himself sideways and dropped to the floor. He almost fell - would have done had the priest not held him upright. Tentatively, he took a step. It was excruciatingly painful, but possible. He felt relief wash across him. The strength would return.

  "How does there come to be a church here?" he asked quietly. "A priest of the faith here, and one who speaks Italian and Arabic? And your cross is a plain Romish one, while you greet in Greek?"

  The priest shrugged and let go of Skiouros, leaning the young man's hands on the table for support instead as he removed his white linen smock to display his ordinary clothes beneath also stained with blood. "There has always been a church here. In the old days there were many of them, but time tears the faithful from this Muslim world and sends them across the water seeking the safety of Catholic lands and the shelter of the Pope. When I first came to these shores I attended service in the last over-ground church in the Emir's domain, and there were still half a hundred of us in Tunis and Carthage and the surrounding lands. Now there are nine and we are all old. Soon the light of the true faith in this land will be extinguished forever."

  He sighed as he dried his hands on a rare clean cloth. "Even if there is some great crusade to take this once-sacred land back into the faith, it will be too late for us. My flock are a motley collection of survivors, both Orthodox and catholic - they speak mainly Arabic, with a smattering of Latin. Truth be told, we should be two churches but, with a combined flock of nine, who has the inclination to uphold the age-old divisions between our churches? Even I, who am shepherd of the flock, do not deign to hold my services in Greek."

  "But it is nothing short of miraculous then that we found you" Skiouros breathed, trying to straighten.

  "I think if you dredge your memory, young man, you will discover that it was I who found you. It so happens that my congregation and I were on our way here when we came across you in the street."

  "You will have incurred the wrath of the Arabs" the Greek sighed as he took a tentative step once again, wincing.

  "I doubt that. The great Emir has more to occupy his mind than such a little hiccup. He will not worry too deeply that a corsair's slaves escaped and that a Turk is somewhat out of pocket. There is an age-old understanding with the Christian community here. He is tolerant of us and we cause him no grief - he knows that our days are numbered and that the church here fades. To allow us to fade away peacefully fulfils an ancient vow of the Hafsid Emirs of Tunis and grants him an aura of mercy and respectability that few of his contemporaries can claim."

  Divested of the worst blood-soaked garments, the priest stepped forward and grasped Skiouros by the wrist as he staggered.

  "Your strength will return. It is mostly the loss of so much blood that makes you weak rather than the wound itself."

  Skiouros nodded and noted for the first time the paleness of his skin. He shuddered in the slight chill harboured by the underground temple. He had the strangest feeling that he had escaped death by only a hair's breadth, and even that only because God had willed it so. 'God has some purpose for all of this' the priest has said, echoing speculations he himself had made in the days aboard the pirate kadirga when he could so easily have died a dozen times over.

  "What of the others?" he asked quietly.

  "They are in the room above. The church remains below ground, where the less tolerant of the locals cannot daub their slogans upon its walls, and the room above serves as our meeting house and a place we can sit and drink wine or khave in peace."

  "Can I manage the stairs?"

  The priest furrowed his brow. "I somehow feel that little can stand in your way when you set your mind to a task, young man."

  "Will you help me?"

  The priest nodded and held out his hand, aiding his young patient to cross the room to the stairs.

  "You make a good medic for a priest?" Skiouros enquired hesitantly.

  "And you make a good priest for a killer."

  "Sorry?"

  "The number of sword cuts in your shirt, breeches and boots. Strangely, though, with no matching marks on your flesh as far as I can see. You are clearly a lucky man or impervious to blades."

  "Sword practice" Skiouros explained, noting with interest that the priest had even sewn the fresh rent in his shirt along with the wound itself.

  "I said I wished to know nothing of your past, and I hold to it. God brought me to you and I am not a man to flout the will of God, but I have no wish to deepen my knowledge of your strange world. I would as soon have you gone from under my roof."

  Reaching the stairs, Skiouros began to climb very slowly and painfully, the priest gripping him carefully and gently and yet with a vice-like grip that would prevent his falling should his legs give way. Skiouros still had a hundred questions, but not only was he sure that the priest was unlikely to answer them; the sheer effort of the climb stifled him, requiring every ounce of breath he could muster.

  It seemed an hour, though it could only have been little more than a minute or two, before he stepped out onto the old, threadbare rugs that covered the floor of the upper room. The building was almost as low as the church-cellar beneath, though with a flat ceiling. A large room was filled with low cushions, a table and three chairs and two old, worn cupboards, two windows and a closed door giving out onto the street. The windows were covered with white hangings that afforded privacy, but let in plenty of light and swayed in the breeze that kept the worst of the heat from the room. The curtains glowed and from the bronze quality of the light, Skiouros estimated the time as perhaps an hour before sundown.

  The opposite side of the room held two more doorways, each covered with a draped rug. Skiouros was relieved to see Parmenio, Nicolo and Cesare all seated in the main room with cups of something, the young Orsini relaxing back into a cushion with a contented - if puffy and discoloured - smile despite the beating that had almost knocked him into the arms of Morpheus for good. Three of the priest's congregation sat with them in silence, the Arabic-Italian language barrier almost uncrossable for the two groups.

  "Jesu, look at you" Parmenio whistled as he caught sight of Skiouros appearing from the stairway. "You look greyer than a Donatello marble."

  "I have to admit to having felt better" Skiouros replied with a weak smile.

  "Come here and have some wine. Puts red back in your blood." The captain peered down into his cup. "And given the pedigree of this local hooch, probably puts hair on your eyeballs too. Tastes like it's already been drunk a couple of times."

  Nicolo nudged him, causing wine to slop from the sides of the older man's cup. "If you don't like it, pass it to me."

  "I don't dislike it that much" Parmenio said defensively, cradling his cup away from the purser.

  "Wine dulls the wits" Orsini announced quietly without looking around. "Khave seems to sharpen them. Well met master Skiouros."

  As the young Greek staggered across to one of the seats and lowered himself into it, painfully and grunting every inch of the way, Parmenio looked across at the priest.

  "Now that you're back, I have to enquire as to what our next move should be? I won't burden you with too many of our troubles, but you know we're escaped slaves and with little or no knowledge of the city. It's more than likely that Turkish bastard is still in the city, especially now that brother death-wish over there has given old grey-eyes a wound to remember us by."

  Skiouros frowned irritably. "I helped us escape."

  "And you just had to give him a nasty wound in the process, didn't you. I'd have liked to have run the bastard through myself, but barring that I'd have left him well alone. That way he might have cut his losses and left us alone. But you've met Hassan 'the butcher'. Can you imagine for one moment old grey-eyes letting us go free now? He'll turn over every rock and kick in every door in Tunis to find you now."

  Skiouros blinked. I
t hadn't occurred to him, but Parmenio was almost certainly correct. His blow against Hassan had given them the chance to escape but had also sealed their fate as prey to this most vicious of hunters.

  Damn!

  Behind him, the priest wandered across to a barrel of water and stripped down to his breeches, dropping the bloodied clothes in a pile and scrubbing the stains from his flesh before dipping his head in and rinsing the blood from his beard and hair. After a moment he rose again, water droplets falling to the sparse dry rugs.

  "I have already arranged matters, master Parmenio" the priest announced. "Two of my congregation deal in ivory and rare woods that the Amazigh - the Berbers as you call them - bring from beyond the deserts. They are busy unloading their latest cartload along with the desert people who brought it into the city. The cart will then have to return through the walls and back out to the camp of the traders a mile from the city. When it returns, the four of you will be aboard it."

  "You take a serious risk in providing such aid, father" Cesare noted quietly.

  "The greater risk would be in keeping you here, and as a good man of God I could hardly abandon believers to their fate…" he shot a quick glance at Skiouros "no matter how underhand and suspicious they may be. You must be gone as soon as possible for all our sakes. Faysal and Shukri will take you to the camp as soon as night falls. I would move you sooner, but there might be questions at the gate. As the sun sets the guards are always tired and less attentive, and the lengthening shadows add a touch of obfuscation to any trickery."

  Orsini nodded his understanding.

  "What can we do from there, father?"

  "I have already spoken to the brothers. The Amazigh people have always had a healthy respect for the Church despite their nearly all being Muslim these days - in the years Byzantium ruled here, many of their people were of the Orthodox faith. Faysal and Shukri will negotiate with the traders to transport you away from here."

  "Where can we go?" Skiouros asked quietly. "This is not a land filled to bursting point with helpful and sympathetic people. We really need to be making for the peninsula of Italia."