“Only to those who weren’t there,” Fatima said quietly. “Father was there for the entire siege, and its not a topic he cares to talk about.”
“I understand you wanting to change the subject” Kenezki said with a nonchalant look (and a few winks) around the table, “Once they —”
“I’m not trying to change any—”
“As I was saying,” Kenezki overrode her, “Maybe I’m wrong about this boy, Ríg. It’d be absurd, wouldn’t it? It’s not like your father would have brought Santini himself to the Krak, would he?”
“Not to mention, rather difficult,” Khalil said dryly, echoing his wife’s earlier words, “considering the fact that that man was killed at Mecina, fighting Saladin.”
In a rush, Clarinda realized the source of the tension coming from Khalil and Fatima — they were covering something they knew about Santini, but what? and how did that something relate to Fatima’s father? Was this Ríg, indeed, the Hospitaller knight from her visions?
“Enough about Mecina and Santini, Kenezki,” Evremar said impatiently. “You’ll ruin my digestion with talk about dead saints and the successes of Hospitallers. I’d much rather talk about my Templar order, if you don’t mind, particularly the bedouin raids happening around here lately. Those raiders —”
“The raiders who have plagued Betherias and Canet?” Khalil interjected. “We have discussed this –”
“And countless other towns and posts along the eastern boundaries of our lands!” Evremar snapped angrily, his attention back to Khalil with a glare. He raised the goblet and slammed it onto the wood of the table, spilling wine over its rim. “Caesarean territories have been virtually under siege for the last six months.”
Khalil shook his head. “We’re camel traders, Milord. Walk on top of your walls here and look down. We barter in animals, and aren’t warriors.”
“Your people might be traders, but then again, they might not. You’ve certainly fought before, Khalil; I sense it in you as much as I perceive it in Clarinda’s Greek friend. Who’s to say that the same is not true of all of your people who sit outside my walls?”
“Tell me,” Khalil said as he inclined forward slightly, “if I didn’t personally know many here at the table, I’d think that all of your people were afflicted with the same madness that seems to have touched you! We’ve told you. We’re camel traders, on our way to Haifa, then Aleppo.”
“No. You and your wife are bedouin, and you must have some contact with these raiders.” Evremar gave a black look to Guy. “This I will not budge on. Until we get the information we seek, Khalil, you and the bedouin will continue to be my guests, and we’ll continue to have these pleasant evening meals.”
“We all look the same to you, eh, Grand Master? You won’t even entertain the possibility that I might not know who these raiders are?” Khalil shook his head. “What will prevent my people from departing in the middle of the night?”
“The garrison based in this city should prevent any problems,” Evremar commented casually, “and it’s not as if you can go anywhere without permission from me. Come. You want the Writ to continue trading in the Levant, and I want an end to these raids. We can, I think, meet both our needs, can’t we?”
He raised an arm to a minstrel waiting nearby. “Now, let’s have music and some fun — I’m done with all this talk of politics and imminent war. Let’s rejoice in the moment!”
Khalil gave a frustrated look to Fatima, but as the music began, the performer’s fingers plucking skillfully on the harp, conversations resumed as another course arrived at the table. Ceramic platters arrived with bukhari rice, lamb cuts, beef kabobs, and more wrapped grape leaves. Evremar clapped delightedly at the appearance of the long-awaited rosemary- braised lamb shanks.
After helping himself to generous portions of each, Evremar began eating in earnest. Queen Sibylla, probably welcoming a chance not to have to watch Evremar eating, noticed Clarinda watching the Grand Master and asked, “Did you have something else to say to Evremar, Dear? You were asking earlier about your poor father?”
Evremar gave a dramatic groan and reached for his goblet to clear his throat. When he’d gulped enough wine to stagger a person half his size, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Yes, yes — back to your father, the apparently lost Angelo Trevisan. We were interrupted earlier, weren’t we, My Dear?”
“We weren’t interrupted,” Clarinda said with a quiet firmness, but looking directly into the man’s beady eyes, “I told you that he wasn’t dead and you changed the subject.”
“My dear Clarinda,” the Grand Master said, clucking his tongue regretfully. “As I told you and Hoplitarch Stratioticus earlier, I wish that I could assist you. I truly do. Angelo Trevisan was, indeed, due to arrive here less than a week ago, but you’ve seen the condition of that Genoese galley in the harbor. It’s now a burned shipwreck.”
Evremar cast a conspiratorial glance at his guests, as if trying to include them in the moment. “I’ve told you, your navigator, and your friend, Clarinda, but I’ll tell everyone here, too. That vessel was a plague ship, already laden with corpses when it came here. We buried the entire crew in mass graves outside the walls,” he said with a deep sigh.
“What about my father?” Clarinda repeated loudly. “The last thing he told me was that he was going to meet you here in Caesarea.”
“As I said, Child, it remains a mystery.” Evremar took a long draught from his goblet. “I must say, though, that there are larger matters of concern here. Angelo Trevisan was supposed to be carrying certain…merchandise for me. Yesterday I received confirmation from my agent in Venice that Angelo did, indeed, receive the first half of the sum due him, as well as a promissory note for the remainder. Neither my cargo nor some letters-of-exchange I expected were on the ship; or, rather, what was on the ship was not the consignment I paid for. You were there for the lading of cargo, weren’t you? For the goods loaded in Venice?”
“I’m aware of what was on the manifests for our five ships,” Clarinda replied, her tone neutral. “However, there was no need for him to come to Caesarea.”
“Ah, I see. Of course.” Evremar’s eyebrows raised as he returned his goblet to the table and again sighed tiredly. “However, you’re certain he didn’t speak of this merchandise to you?”
“No, perhaps you can tell me what it was,” Clarinda lied, thinking of the caskets that had been both in her father’s cabin and on the shore of the pool in her dream. “A description that might jostle my memory?”
Evremar shrugged, but said nothing as he stared at her appraisingly.
Clarinda felt a prickling sensation on the nape of her neck, and her stomach yawned wide with dreadful apprehension. It’d been bad enough seeing the burned hulk of a galley upon arriving, but as she returned Evremar’s probing gaze with some defiance, she realized how remote the chances were that she would find her father alive in this place.
“While we’re waiting for Signorina Clarinda to recall what was on her manifests, let’s have the minstrels come sing a song,” Kenezki said distantly, his words breaking like dropped glasses on the floor of Clarinda’s awareness. He grinned at Evremar. “Do you mind, Milord? It’s called the Lay of Volund, a famous lay in the northlands. There have even been caskets made in Paris whose carved ivory panels depict scenes from the story.”
“Caskets?” Evremar echoed, turning an apparently puzzled look to Clarinda as he kept talking to Kenezki. “Surely not — why ever would we want to hear a song about caskets? Any ideas, Milady Clarinda?”
At that, Kenezki howled with delight and the sound pierced her head in a way that almost made Clarinda scream.
She stayed in control, though, and turned from the evil man to ask Fatima about the weather lately in Caesarea. Anything to get her blurring, tear-filled eyes out of Kenezki’s line of sight.
I think my father’s dead, and Evremar and Kenezki are at the heart of it.
“Well, the caskets were simply t
he commemoration of the poem,” Kenezki corrected the Grand Master. “The story itself is about the exploits of Volund the Dark Elf…”
What on earth was wrong with Kenezki that made Clarinda’s head hurt so? Black motes crossed her vision and nausea slid up her throat. Fatima suddenly took hold of the back of her arm to support her.
“Clarinda?” Fatima whispered in concern. “Are you all right?”
Clarinda gave a nod of distracted assurance, but stayed focused on Kenezki.
Volund the Dark Elf. That name, Volund. There’s something about that name. A vision began, but unlike the others she tried to control it. Of all the moments during this banquet, she couldn’t fade into dreamtime, not now, not with everyone turned to watch her speaking with the Grand Master and Black Sea pirate. Stay with Volund, though, you foolish girl! There’s pain in his name, but there’s something else. Something about making and unmaking.
“Clarinda, your nose is bleeding!” Fatima hissed, handing her a linen cloth.
Big surprise, Clarinda thought, can’t anyone feel how evil this man is?
“Oh, Dear,” Evremar said, his voice oozing concern. “Are you quite all right, Clarinda? I do hope our discussion isn’t upsetting you…”
“Evremar, enough of this kind of talk,” King Guy warned, drawing everyone’s attention from the troubled Venetian girl.
“And, as for you, Monsieur Kenezki, I’ll have you know that —” he continued in a harsh tone, but Clarinda’s focus on the vision made her lose track of all words not in her own mind.
Maimed, but not broken — that happened later. So much broken in Volund that he can never come back to what he once was. The ruination of the elves and the lust of the dwarves; both made the dark books and both allowed nightmare into the Nine Worlds.
By concentrating, Clarinda maintained a view of the vision as the men spoke. Staring through space between Kenezki and Guy as the men argued, Clarinda saw four figures in a forest glade, standing before a mounded earthworks that looked like a...foundry?
Clarinda blinked and wiped at her nose, trying to peer more closely without anyone noticing. Yes, as if a blacksmith opened his shop in the side of a hill! Ilmarinen. A voice that sounded like Urd’s said to her. Was it Urd, and if so, how was Clarinda hearing her thoughts? Most importantly, why was the Norn so distressed? There, at the forge! The smith’s named Ilmarinen, and this is the moment when he, Volund, and that...other one...undo the covenants. No, I’m confused. This is a new moment, not yet happening, but resonating the same magic. Not a Codex this time, but a Sampo. In seeking expiation and paradise, they bring hell back to the Nine Worlds. Clarinda, you must solve this mystery! There are those at this table here in Caesarea who have exerted themselves in this effort. My sisters and I’ve foreseen the danger if the Codex Wielder destroys the Niflheim Gate, but now there seems to be more in the works than bringing Veröld Martröd back into the multiverse. If the Sampo’s made, a path to Annen Verden will reopen. That cannot happen. Beware of Dietrich the Mad, Clarinda. None of these evil beings should be here, but return they shall, with witches and druids in their wake. This should not be!
The blacksmith’s hammer kept its damnable clanging as the figures near the hillside foundry shifted into another time, and another group. Volund and the dark figure were gone, and now, now a madman who looked like a living cadaver scampered in front of Ilmarinen, urging the smith to work faster in the moments when he wasn’t torturing his captives. Clarinda wondered at the vision, horrified at the skeletal man who danced while a shorter figure (a dwarf?) whistled and hummed as he piled the bodies of his kindred into a pyre near the forge.
She gasped. Santini was there — standing calmly before the madman as he screamed at a woman in the shadows of the forest — and then the Hospitaller was flung through the air to land beneath a...sword in a tree? A melody more damned and haunted than anything Kenezki could muster in speech emanated coldly from that weapon. It’s the Singing Sword of Arngrim, she shouted quietly into the void of dreams. Aurelius, don’t touch that sword!
Dread closed around Clarinda at the sight of the blade. Why wasn’t she with him in this dream? In every other vision they’d been together. Where was she, and why did she feel as if her absence was going to lead him to make a disastrous choice? Something horrible was about to happen, bound together by magics that involved this strange quartet of Volund, the dark scampering figure, the toiling dwarf, and the blacksmith, while Clarinda herself was nowhere in sight!
“Oh, very well, King Guy,” Kenezki laughed. “I’ll relent for the sake of our party — we’ve got better things to do. We’ll hear the tale of Volund some other time.”
The pain in Clarinda’s head vanished and Urd’s voice fell silent when Kenezki sat back and sulked in his chair, turning his head to fruitlessly look for support from either the Grand Master or Archbishop, both of whom were speaking to people around them.
“I’ll be fine,” Clarinda said, finally replying to Fatima as she realized that only seconds had passed here. She daubed her bloody nose on the napkin that her friend offered. Santini can’t touch that sword, but I’m not there to stop him! She closed her eyes momentarily, but, nothing. The vision was completely gone.
“Yes, well,” Evremar said, seeing the other side of the table had quieted down. “I thought it was my house and would’ve liked to hear such a song, but let’s change tack. Who here likes riddles?”
Murmurs of approval came from the gathered diners. “Very well,” Evremar continued. “The riddle, then: Who’s the strongest — a king, wine, or women?”
Aimery laughed, so far gone in his cups that he began to hiccup as he spoke.
“That’s easy, ask my older brother down the table there... hiccup...the answer’s a king, of course. Kings get to command everything: armies, councils, merchants, commoners, wives, beautifoooool Greek girls like this little ‘Genie in a Bottle,’ here. Get it? Tha’s a joke!” he leaned toward Genevieve, who dodged a grasp at her, and he reeled sideways again, this time in Evremar’s directions. “Kings command everyone. Armies. Tribes. Brothers….everyone…”
“Should we do something?” Fatima asked. “She’s your friend…”
“No,” Clarinda replied quietly, “Genevieve’s going to have to learn some lessons about life, and better now than later.”
Aimery lurched completely onto the floor and vomited near the feet of his host as he passed out.
Evremar looked distastefully at the sight, and then turned back to the troubadour as his three mastiffs came from corners of the room to lick Aimery’s face as well as the remains of the man’s stomach.
“I’d say that wine would have to be the strongest of the three,” Guy said to Evremar, putting his best face on for what had become a very strange dinner party.
“Is King Guy correct? Is wine the strongest of the three because of what happened to poor Lord Aimery? What say you?” The Grand Master repeated his riddle. “I ask you, what’s the strongest: a king, wine, or women?”
No one replied.
“The ladies and I should perhaps thank you for the compliment, Master Evremar,” Clarinda said suddenly into the quiet. There was a ferocity in her voice that replaced the vulnerability exposed by the talk of caskets. She’d heard the riddle before. Neither Evremar’s ‘entertainments’ nor Kenezki’s attempts at goading were going to distract her from her purpose. “We know that women are the strongest of the three,” Clarinda said, giving the answer to the riddle. “In childbirth we bring both the king and the wine-seller into this sorry world, and all men fear the loss of strength that they’ll suffer when they lust for or love a woman.” She raised her goblet of mulled cider to the jongleur. “Two caskets full of compliments for your riddled praise to us, and you’ll get those plus give me three hundred dinars and the safe return of my father.”
“Three hundred and your father?” Evremar spat, choking on a piece of lamb. “You’re trying to make a profit here? At my table?”
“I’ve been
greatly inconvenienced by your games, Grand Master,” Clarinda said coldly, “and my men still have to be paid for a rescue trip that wasn’t part of our original schedule. Padre would expect me to do no less.”
“Why, you little vixen! Your life won’t be worth a bezant if…” Evremar stopped, looking with alarm at Guy and Sibylla, who were both watching Clarinda, Kenezki, and Evremar with curious expressions.
Clarinda turned hotly to Evremar, but Kenezki spoke before she had a chance to return to her topic.
What is it about this man? He confounds me at every turn!
“Two casket’s worth, eh?” Kenezki repeated, glancing quickly at Evremar, who was glowering at Clarinda.
“Two,” Clarinda said, the purity of her anger at these men lending a strength to her quietly spoken words that made even Khalil stop talking and look at her with curiosity. “Two large caskets that father didn’t know I switched before he went to meet the Templars at your house in Constantinople.” She stared at Evremar. “Padre always had a problem thinking two or three moves ahead on a chess board, Grand Master. Fortunately for us, I tend to anticipate a bit farther ahead.”
“Interesting,” Evremar mused, icy calm suddenly freezing his features, “and refreshing that the game’s in the open. So, you do know the nature of the merchandise. I hope for your sake that you haven’t opened them. May I assume that the caskets are on one of the ships that are anchored in the harbor?”
“I’d assume nothing,” Clarinda said, “especially since the coastline here at the Levant has many ports of call on the route from Constantinople to Caesarea. I left three weeks ago, and the voyage can be done in ten days at speed and with the right winds.”
“She lies,” Kenezki said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “I was on her ship the entire —”
“No, you were on the Calypso, not my ship,” Clarinda said, not bothering to look at the pirate, but hard put to ignore the effect of his presence upon her. This time, however, it was his turn to respond and she’d caught him unawares with her words. Any fury he felt was like that of a thousand dying seagulls unable to take to the sky because their wings had been broken — massive squawking and shrieking in her mind, but harmless and impotent if she could ignore the noise.
The Codex Lacrimae Page 13