'For trade,' Harry said immediately. 'Perhaps that's a bias in my own thinking. But there is money to be made out there. That's why I would go…'
For decades European navigators had been probing the Ocean Sea, seeking new trade routes. This drive was a legacy of the Mongols, whose hundred-year peace had briefly united Asia with Europe. Travellers like Marco Polo, following the new continent-spanning trade routes, brought back accounts of great eastern empires. Italian colonies on the Black Sea and the crusader cities in the Levant made a handsome profit as conduits for imports from the east, including sugar, spices and textiles, furs, pelts and hides, wax, honey, amber, metals.
'But it wasn't only wealth that came swarming into Europe along the Mongol trade routes,' Abdul put in darkly. 'The Annihilation dawned in the heart of Asia, and travelled with the traders and their ships out of the east. You can tell from the records…'
When the Mongol peace ended, the rise of Muslim empires like the Ottomans' cut off the Christian west from the rich markets of the east. Now nobody even knew if the Khans were still on their throne. In the south too Christian traders found themselves boxed in by Muslims, who controlled the spice trade from India and the far east, and whose caravans, snaking across the Sahara, were the only access to the great gold fields of west Africa.
So, in search of new trade routes, the Europeans were taking to the seas.
'It's an exciting time,' Harry said. 'You must have seen the new maps.
The ships continue to get better too. The Portuguese, for instance, are inching their way down the west coast of Africa, seeking a sea route to the African gold mines. Some say it might be possible to go all the way down the coast of Africa and find a channel east, through to the Indian Ocean and the spice islands that way. And others are already working their way out west into the Ocean Sea. They are coming to understand how the wind blows, where the great ocean currents flow.
'And we know there are new lands to be found out there. Like Madeira, which the Portuguese control. And the Canaries, which the Spanish have conquered, and they call the Fortunate Isles.'
Abdul said, 'So there are solid reasons for this Dove to turn his energies west.' He fixed Harry with a glare. 'But you haven't told me everything, have you, cousin? If the Dove goes east there will be war between Christians and Muslims – but there is always war between Christians and Muslims. What would be so terrible about this one?'
Harry sipped his pomegranate juice. And he showed Abdul the rest of the prophecy, the lines his sister had discovered scratched in the wall of her cell in York.
X
Harry read,
The Dragon stirs from his eastern throne,
Walks west.
The Feathered Serpent, plague-hardened,
Flies over ocean sea,
Flies east.
Serpent and Dragon, the mortal duel
And Serpent feasts on holy flesh…
'Geoffrey Cotesford believes he now understands these words, four centuries old. This is how he has interpreted them.
'The Dove is a strong man. Strong, clever, determined. He is a force, elemental, loose in our world. He must be, or else why would the prophecy speak of him? West or east, where he goes others will follow. If he goes west, he will surely lead the conquest of lands teeming with wealth and strange peoples – lands unknown to the ancients, and to our geographers, perhaps. On the other hand, if the Dove turns east, with the same energy and single-minded purpose, he will lead a ferocious war against Islam. And he will use the Engines of God to do it. That's what Geoffrey argues. It all fits together, Geoffrey says.'
'Better weapons are always an advantage,' Abdul said. 'But Muslims aren't fools. Advantages tend not to endure.'
'Yes, that's what Geoffrey says. In time the spies of Islam will acquire the secrets of the engines. And what's more, Islam and Christianity have no means of achieving peace with each other: history shows that, says Geoffrey. So the war will be unending, the destruction on both sides will be multiplied – the use of the engines won't lead to victory but to catastrophe. From London to Baghdad, Geoffrey predicts, not a stone will be left standing. The only victors will be the warlords – whether fighting in the name of Christ or Muhammad it won't matter.
'And like all warlords, like the Mongols, they will need to feed their armies on further expansion. When the destruction of their homelands is complete they will turn their attentions outside Europe, south to Africa – and east into Asia. There will be more carnage. But China, immense, populous and ancient, will survive, as it survived the Mongols.'
'I can believe it,' Abdul said. 'How many warriors could England muster? A few thousand? It's said that the Chinese emperors command an army of a million men.' He read, '"The Dragon stirs from his eastern throne, / Walks west." I think I understand.'
Harry nodded. 'Geoffrey says this means that the Chinese will pursue the broken European armies back across the continent, all the way to France, perhaps, and even England. The last remnants of Christianity and Islam alike will become vassals of the Dragon Throne.'
'And when they have taken Europe the Chinese will face the Ocean Sea themselves.' Abdul sat forward, fascinated. 'I sailed with the Chinese, under their great eunuch admirals. Will they take their turn to explore the Ocean Sea?'
'No,' said Harry firmly. 'Not according to the prophecy. Rather, the dangers of the Ocean Sea will come to haunt them…'
Even if the Dove did not sail west, other Europeans would surely try the journey, fragile ships from Portugal and Spain and England probing ever deeper beyond the curved horizon. Others, then, would fall on the shores of the western countries – not the empires of Asia, but lands unknown to Europe, said Geoffrey.
These more tentative explorations would benefit the strange empires of the west more than the Europeans. The Dove would have conquered – or at least he would have set an example of conquest and colonisation, as opposed to reasonably peaceful contact and trade. These more timid explorers would be overwhelmed. The strange oceanic kings would indulge in trade, but in time they would acquire the newcomers' weapons and ships, take them apart, learn to make their own. They would suffer from plagues brought from Europe, but not in great numbers, and the generations to come would acquire immunity.
And a western empire, ruled by the 'plague-hardened' people of a 'Feathered Serpent', would learn of the rich lands across the Ocean Sea.
'They will come,' said Harry. 'Pushing across the Ocean Sea, a conquering fleet heading east where the Europeans might have gone west. On the coasts of England, France and Portugal they will fall on an overstretched Chinese empire.'
Abdul read,
The Feathered Serpent, plague-hardened,
Flies over ocean sea,
Flies east.
Serpent and Dragon, the mortal duel.
'But the western conquerors will unleash a horror not known in our continent since before the Romans.'
'"And Serpent feasts on holy flesh."'
'They eat the flesh of humans. They sacrifice human lives in great numbers. Their wars, Geoffrey predicts, will be terrible slave-raids, as captives from across a devastated Europe are hauled to their temples to die under the knives of the priests. Whole populations will be consumed…
'This, and no more,' Harry said. 'The prophecy lets us see no further.'
Abdul sat as if stunned. Then he got up and paced around the room. He took a bowl of jasmine blossom and breathed deeply of its scent. 'All this,' he said at last, 'if this Dove turns east and not west. But these final lines: "All this I have witnessed / I and my mothers." What does that mean?'
'Geoffrey says that Eadgyth was not a prophet, not a seer who could see the future, but – a puppet. The words were put into her mouth by a Witness, just as the line says, a saint of the far future – a woman, Eadgyth always believed – who will live at a time of the terrible calamity of the western invasion of the east, or at least fears its likelihood. And this person, wishing to avert the horror, will find a way – we
ll, to speak to a woman of her own deepest past.'
'How?' Abdul demanded.
Harry smiled. 'If I knew that I'd sell it, and wouldn't be here talking to you. In fact, Geoffrey believes we are dealing with two prophecies here – or two witnessings. He says the Dove was meant to go west. Somebody else found a way to deflect him from his true course – somebody else has already meddled in history, and is trying to send the Dove the wrong way, east, equipped with the Engines of God. And it is a second witness who is now trying to reverse things through the Testament.'
Abdul thought that over, and laughed. 'Geoffrey says, Geoffrey says. These scholars are troublesome to men of the world like us. I suppose these Witnesses are scholars too, competing to muck about with history. And now we're meant to put it all right by packing the Dove off to the west?'
'That's the idea,' Harry said unhappily. 'I suppose the question is, what do we do now?'
Abdul sat again. 'I think we have a responsibility, even if the chance of the witnessing coming true is small, to try to avert this huge destructive disaster of the future of Serpent and Dragon. Anything would be better than that.'
'Agreed. So we must do something about it.'
'Yes. But you feel as uncomfortable about this sort of talk as I do, don't you, Harry?'
Harry shrugged. 'I'm just a merchant. I sell wool. That's all I know.'
'Yes.' Abdul gazed out of the window, and the dusty evening light caught the planes of his face. 'And I, I have always been outside the current of the world. I'm happy with that. Happy to observe, not to be involved. I'm content with my role here in the palace. In Granada, I'm trying to resolve problems, Harry. To save people. To restore equilibrium, if you like.'
'Not to change history.'
'Indeed. And yet here we are.'
Harry nodded. 'Where do we start?'
'We need to find this Dove of yours,' Abdul said firmly. 'For, it seems, all of history turns on his decisions. He must be a navigator, a mariner, a captain, or a ship-owner; he must be seeking sponsorship for his western voyages. These navigators all know each other – and are jealous of each other too. I will see if I can track him down.'
'And then what?'
'Then we will decide what needs to be done to send him on his proper way, off into the Ocean Sea.' He frowned. 'It occurs to me – this strange witnessing has fallen into the hands of our family. But families have a way of proliferating. What if there are others, Harry, others out there like you and me, likewise armed with the Testament of Eadgyth – or worse, the Engines of God? And what if one of those other unknown cousins has decided to work the other way – to send the Dove, not west, but east?'
Harry was appalled; that thought hadn't occurred to him. 'If so they will be looking for the Dove, as we are,' he said.
'True. We must keep our eyes open. And if we encounter them,' Abdul said calmly, 'we must deal with them.' And he pressed his nose to a jasmine petal, as if for comfort.
XI
AD 1485
In the summer of 1485 Grace Bigod, with Friar James in tow, travelled back to Spain. Grace wanted to press her case for the adoption of the Engines of God by the Spanish court.
But the Spanish were at war. This year, Fernando and Isabel were engaged in the siege of a Moorish town the Christians called Ronda.
So James and Grace travelled across the country to Ronda with a raiding party of Castilian soldiers. Moving inland from the coast they crossed a landscape of folded hills and flood plains through which rivers snaked, glistening, and fortified towns sat squat on the hilltops. The scars of the monarchs' war were everywhere, in the burned-out fields, the hulks of abandoned farmhouses, the stinking carcasses littering the roadsides.
The knights called themselves caballeros, and they were attended by hidalgos, lesser nobles. As they rode they joked, sang and drank. James thought they had a certain lazy arrogance. If they saw a stone wall standing they would run their horses at it to knock it down, if they saw a haystack they would torch it, if they saw a well they would throw stones down it to block it up, if they saw an irrigation channel they would dam it with dead cattle. With their crusaders' crosses stitched to their sleeves they dedicated each new bit of destruction to Saint James the Moorslayer, and they dreamed of what they would do if they found a few plump Moorish women hiding out in the ruins. Thus they wrecked a landscape that had been intensively farmed for seven centuries.
Grace had no sympathy for James's unease at all this. 'You're a hypocrite,' she said bluntly. 'You gladly devote your pious, pointless little life to the development of devastating weapons. And yet you flinch when you see the results.'
James faced his conscience, and he knew she was right. He had had no choice about being assigned by his abbot to the engines project. But he was thirty years old now, and as the years had worn away he had become engaged in the intellectual exercise of the engines for its own challenge. It was thrilling to see these most remarkable toys emerge from heaps of wood and iron, saltpetre, sulphur and carbon – a thrill, his confessor warned him, that might be a compensation for other aspects of his life that he had piously put aside.
But he had, he realised, built a wall in his mind between the development of the engines and their ultimate purpose.
He said unhappily, 'It's just that I didn't expect it to be like this.' He waved a hand. 'Is this war? This wanton destruction of property – there will be famine here in the winter – this savagery inflicted on the old and the ill, on women and children.'
She laughed at him. 'What did you expect, chivalry? You ought to read a little more widely, brother. This is the way wars are fought now: French against Flemish, Italian against Italian, Moor against Christian… Why, we English pioneered the technique, in our long war with the French. You cut off your enemy at the knees by removing his food supply, by shocking his population into terror and submission. There's even a word for it, I'm told: chevauchee. Wars are fought like this all over Europe now, like it or not.
'So pray for the souls of the dead children, friar. But remember that the Pope himself says that a war for Christ is a just war, however it's fought. And pray that you're never on the losing side.'
She was a hard, brutal woman. And though she must be near fifty now, the angry lust she had so carelessly stirred in him still flickered. She had made a peculiar enemy of him by the way she had treated him, he thought. He tried to conceal this from her. And he tried to dismiss from his own mind the thoughts he had of her, fantasies of lust and violence, in which he ended her domination of him once and for all.
After days on the road, they arrived at Ronda.
The port of Malaga was the Christians' next strategic objective, as it had been for two years, but its twin fortresses stood strong and stubborn under the command of the formidable El Zagal, and the Christians did not yet have the resources to deal with it. So they had focused their energies on destroying this town, Ronda, thirty miles inland and sixty miles west of Malaga, the key to the western defence of the residual Moorish state.
The site was extraordinary. Ronda sat on top of a butte, a pillar of rock. To the north was a steep-walled gorge. To the south the butte was lower, and here the Moors had built a massive fortification, a curtain wall studded by towers. The only way into the town was by a bridge that spanned the gorge to the north. James, studying this place, thought it was a textbook example of a natural fortress, a definition of impregnability. No wonder the Romans, those great military technicians, had settled here.
But the monarchs of Spain were here to take it, and the siege was laid.
The Christian camp, out of range of the Moorish defenders' cannons, arquebuses and crossbows, was a morass of mud and tents and stinking cesspits, over which a loose cloud of greasy smoke hung day and night. But as they approached, James saw with a helpless thrill that the banners of the monarchs hung over the camp. Fernando and Isabel, the modem champions of Christendom, really were here in person, not half a mile from where James and Grace pitched their own rough l
eather tent.
But this place of war was not comfortable.
When night fell great cannon began to roar. On the south side of the city, targeting the walls and towers, Fernando had drawn up a battery of immense new Italian guns called bombards. Their unceasing thunder was overwhelming, and the night was a hellish scene of half-naked men, blistered from the heat of the weapons, labouring amid a stink of gunpowder and smoke to load, aim and fire, over and over, the shot gradually battering down the city walls.
And as the day broke the Moors attacked – but they came from the hills, not from the city. James learned that these were the forces of the governor of Ronda. An experienced general called Hamet el Zegri, he had allowed himself to be lured out of his city to raid Christian fields and barns, a revenge for the chevauchee of his countryside. But the Christians had sent a cavalry detachment to cut him off from Ronda, and when el Zegri returned he found his town already besieged.
Still, under el Zegri's command the Moors came riding down from their hills, every day. The armies closed amid a roar of cannon and the popping of arquebuses and a clamour of war drums, and to cries of 'For Saint James!' and 'Allah akbar!' When the Christians mounted attacks, the Moorish would kneel in blocks, their pikes at the ready, soaking up the charges, their javelins in quivers to be flung with deadly skill. And the Moorish cavalry, lightly armoured, riding fast under their colourful battle flags, was much more mobile than the Christian knights in their heavier chain-mail and plate.
For all the bustle and excitement of the cavalry charges and the spectacle of the cannon and arquebuses, the real work of killing was done, as it had always been, with pikes and swords and scimitars, wielded by human muscle, one man against another. James was appalled by the utter, fully committed violence of these encounters, even though none of them was conclusive. Isabel had set aside tents to serve as hospitals, but they were overrun, and if you went to that part of the camp the groans of the dying and the stink of rotting flesh were unbearable.
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