Crossing To Paradise (20 page)

There was one gold word painted between each of the fishermen, and a line of words under the waves. If I saw them now, Gatty thought, I could read them, I could.

Early next morning, Gatty and Snout hurried down to the harbor with Brother Antony, but there was no boat in dock large enough to sail the pilgrims across to Jaffa. All the harbormaster could do was tell them to come back the next day.

“God will answer your prayers,” Brother Antony said, “But not, maybe, in the way you asked.”

When Gatty walked past the courthouse, she wondered whether Signor Umberto was still imprisoned there, and whether Mansur had taken Babolo safely back to his mother.

He was only interested in himself, she thought. He just used me, and Nest. He didn't care about wrecking our pilgrimage. Why was I so blind?

Early each day after that, Gatty and Snout and the monk walked down to the harbor, and the harbormaster shook his head. Then the three of them went through the market, buying tiles of white salt crystals, honey, sultanas, carob beans, spices and the other supplies the monks couldn't provide for themselves, and Snout asked Brother Antony more and more about how they were all used in the monastery kitchen. After this, they slowly made their way back up the to the waiting abbey, heavy-laden and hot. Their early optimism at being able to catch up with their companions began to falter and founder.

Not until the thirteenth day after Gobbo had sailed for the Holy Land without Gatty and Snout did their luck change. As it happened, Brother Antony had gone down alone to the harbor and he hurried back with the good news.

“There's a Saracen fishing boat ready to take you across,” he said.

“Saracen!” exclaimed Snout. He screwed up his face as if he were sucking a lemon.

“Tomorrow. To Acre.”

“Where?” chimed Gatty and Snout.

“Acre. It's nearer than Jaffa. It's not the answer you wanted, but I think it's the best you'll get. Acre's Christian. And all the fishermen are saying that Jaffa's too far for them.”

“Acre,” said Gatty, sounding completely lost. “But the others were going to wait in Jaffa.”

“Or leave us a message,” said Snout.

“Oh, Snout! It's all my fault.”

“Sometimes,” said Brother Antony, “our problems have unexpected solutions. I've been troubled about your safety in the Holy Land. The whole place is seething with brigands, Assassins, tricksters, Saracens, and there are only two of you, one a pretty young woman. But at least Acre's still Christian, and the Knights of Saint John have a house there. So you'll be able to stay with them, and they will be able to help you. You see?”

Snout nodded, unconsoled. And Gatty's grey-green eyes were wide and troubled.

“Fear not,” said Brother Antony gently. “God is with you.” He took off the little crucifix hanging round his neck. “Hold this,” he told Gatty. “Hold it firmly, and upright. Remember who died on the cross for you.”

“Amen,” Gatty murmured.

“Whoever wishes to travel to Jerusalem must bear the same cross,” Brother Antony told her.

“Amen,” Gatty said again, and she politely gave the crucifix back to the monk.

“Thirteen days have passed since I brought you back here,” Brother Antony said. “Thirteen long days. Now then! It's three days' sailing from here to Jaffa, then your companions would have had a day of rest, and then a day's ride to Jerusalem. Seven days in Jerusalem…that's normal.” The monk ticked off the days on his fingers as if he were telling his rosary. “And one day's ride back to Jaffa again. So that's…thirteen days.”

Gatty shivered.

“You do see, do you?” Brother Antony asked them gently. “I very much fear that, early tomorrow morning, Gobbo and your five friends will be setting sail from Jaffa for Venice.”

That
evening, her last at Saint Mary of the Mountain, Gatty felt almost merry. She knew she and Snout would have to find their own way to the Holy City; and beyond that, she could scarcely imagine. But at least the waiting was almost over, and she walked around with a spring in her step.

“Before our guests leave us,” Brother Antony told Gatty and Snout, “it's customary for them to sing for their supper.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gatty.

Brother Antony smiled. “We've sheltered and fed you here, and you can be sure we'll say prayers each day for you. In return, we ask you to give whatever you can.”

“Money, you mean?” Snout asked.

“Not in your case,” the monk replied. “You'll need whatever you have if you're to reach Jerusalem. And as for getting home…” Brother Antony put his hands together in prayer. “For a start, you must pay the fisherman.”

“How much?” Snout asked.

“Four gold coins. Two to him, and two to me.” The monk lifted the hem of his habit, tore off a little strip with his teeth, and gave it to Gatty. “There!” he said. “When you reach Acre, give this to the fisherman. He'll bring it back to me; and when he does, I will know you've reached Acre safely. Then I will pay him.”

“I will!” said Gatty.

“Some guests give us coins,” Brother Antony told them, “some give candles, and last week a pilgrim on her way to see the True Cross gave us a hen. One rich man gave us a gold ring.”

Snout glanced at Gatty, but Gatty stuck out her chin. “It's not mine to give, anyway,” she muttered.

“I'll cook for you and your brothers,” Snout announced.

“Excellent!” said the monk. “An English dinner on this joyous day.”

“Joyous?” said Gatty.

“Mary of Magdala. It's her feast day.”

“But my Gatty,” Snout said proudly, “she really can sing for her supper.”

The monk gave a small, sly smile. “So I've heard,” he murmured.

That evening, in the monks' kitchen, Snout plucked and cleaned five chickens, and Gatty helped him. He smeared them with honey and trussed them in linen cloths and boiled them.

“Just the same as I do at Ewloe,” Snout said. “This will please the monks.”

As was their custom, the monks began to eat in silence, but before very long the abbot broke the rule and asked the monastery cooks to bring cinnamon and nutmeg and black pepper.

“This chicken is very tender,” he told Snout, and Brother Antony translated, “but we monks are partial to subtle spices.” He patted his stomach. “As you know, we eat well here.”

Snout sniffed and tried not to feel offended.

“Nothing matters more than food,” the abbot went on. “Don't you agree?”

Snout nodded glumly.

“The moment we are born, we cry out for a good meal,” Brother Antony translated, “and when we lie dying, our last pleasure is cool water.”

Then, uninvited, Gatty stood up. “I don't know no song about Mary Magdalen,” she called out, “but I know that one about all the saints, flourishing like the lilies, hidden in the clouds.

“
Alleluia,
” Gatty began to sing. “
Alleluia. Alleluia.
”

In the refectory, there was a great stillness. Gatty's voice was like a scalpel, cutting away the monks' sins, and it was a balm, healing their wounds.

Time passed outside the door.

Gatty looked around her. She could tell the monks all wanted her to sing more.

“
Audi filia,
” she sang, as Everard had taught her. “Listen, my daughter, look…”

The holy men listened, and they looked. One remembered his mother and one fingered his rosary; one thought of the girl he had kissed from top to toe under an olive tree; and one tried to think about God.

The abbot rose to his feet. “You have given us fine gifts,” he said. “You, Snout, you've given us full stomachs so we can talk to God. In your voice, Gatty, we hear the grace of God. Never in my life have I heard a voice as beautiful as yours. I only wish you could stay here. It's a pity you're not a boy!”

Gatty and Snout had never put to sea in a small boat before, and the Saracen fishing smack was really not a great deal larger than the landing boat strapped to the side of Gobbo's ship.

It was manned by three fishermen—two boys a couple of years younger than Gatty, and their father. At first sight they looked like ruffians who wouldn't think twice about slipping a fish knife between human ribs. The whites of their eyes were so clear Gatty could almost see through them, like the white of an uncooked egg, and their pupils were large and dark and intent. But when they smiled, as they often did! Ah, then they showed their white teeth, and their eyes shone with the light of the sea. Gatty felt at ease with them.

When she surveyed the wild waves and tangles of their dark hair, Gatty thought of Nest. No, she said to herself, not even Nest would be able to tease it and straighten it. I reckon she'd cut it all off and tell them to begin again.

There was nowhere comfortable in the boat. In the bow, the anchor and the fishboxes were under Gatty's and Snout's feet, and their knees were under their chins. Sticky fishing nets were heaped in the boat's waist
and when Gatty and Snout perched on them, they risked being whacked on the head by the low, swinging boom. As for the stern: The fishermen sat there, forever busy, restraining the juddering tiller, trimming the sails, mending nets, turning towards Mecca and praying, and now and then slipping Gatty sideways glances.

The only shade was behind the sail and in the claustrophobic little space under the bow. Worse, Gatty realized there was nowhere private where she could relieve herself. She had to sit on a bucket while Snout and the three Saracens turned their backs.

All morning, the short sea smacked into them broadside, and jolted the boat, and now and then showered them with spray.

“Your hair!” said Snout. “It's shining like it did when you wore that gold mesh.”

For a long time Gatty looked out over the waves and they were all kinds of blue. Bluebell and periwinkle and thistle blue. Violet and indigo. Lapis, like Lady Gwyneth's ring. They're like blue ice as well, Gatty thought, but it's so hot here there can't never be no ice. I've never seen nothing with so many blues in it.

At first, Gatty thought each wave had a different shape, a different color and meaning. But after a while, they all seemed much the same and quite meaningless. They all rolled through her aching head.

“This sea,” she told Snout. “Austin told me its names.”

Snout yawned.

“Don't you want to know?”

“Go on, then.”

“The Jews call it the Great Sea and the Romans call it the Inner Sea.”

Snout yawned again.

“That's what Mediterranean means. In the middle of the world. Where we are is surrounded by the whole world; Europe and Asia and Africa.”

“Is that right?”

“This Inner Sea…” Gatty began, “well, it's like the heart of the world, and yet it's so heartless. It's just beating emptiness.”

Waves smacked the boat; they thrashed it; they nuzzled and caressed it.

Gatty slept and woke and ate and slept. She felt caught in some seamless, waking dream.

Very early on the third morning, something roused her. Snout was asleep but he wasn't snoring, the two lads were both stretched out and their father was slumped over the lashed tiller; the wind was crooning in the sails.

Gatty peered ahead into the grey-green gloom: day breaking.

At once, on her bed of fishing nets, she got onto her knees. She crossed herself and raised her eyes.

“Behold!” she whispered.

A little wind stirred behind the boat, and the sails rustled.

“The Holy Land,” whispered Gatty. “It must be.”

Now the west wind nudged the boat a little more insistently, and her curved timbers creaked.

“My lady,” whispered Gatty. Her heart pounded, it surged, as if it were the ocean and she were sailing on it. “My lady! I promised you!”

One of the boys stirred and rubbed his eyes. “Akko!” he called out, pointing way down the coast. “Akko!”

Acre, Gatty said to herself. I think he's saying Acre.

Late that afternoon, the little smack slipped into the harbor at Acre, capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and by then Gatty and Snout were ankle-deep in squirming fish. Fish with walleyes and goggle eyes, gaping and pouting and dribbling and flapping, fish with ears, fish with whiskers, small as little fingers and large as shins. The air in the boat was thick with their dying.

And all without anyone walking on the water, Gatty thought, remembering the wall painting in the vestry at Caldicot again. This sea harvest, silver and green and black and gold; and all that food in the market at Kyrenia—honey and sultanas and chickens and geese and melons and grapes and tiles of salt and that. They can't never go hungry here.

Gatty and Snout were exhausted, salt-sticky, fish-slimy, covered in
bumps and bruises. The Saracen fisherman gave them a grim nod. Then he rubbed his right thumb and forefinger.

“He wants that strip of cloth,” Snout said. “The one Brother Antony gave you.”

Gatty took the strip out of the inside pocket of her cloak.

Then the fisherman gestured that Gatty and Snout were to disembark and wade ashore.

“Where are we meant to go?” Snout asked.

“They're not just leaving us here, are they?” said Gatty.

But that's exactly what the fishermen did. One boy slipped over the stern and held the boat steady; and no sooner had Gatty and Snout gathered up their belongings and awkwardly scrambled over the side, bruising their knees again on the gunwales and splashing down into the water, than the boy swung the boat around, pushed off, and hoisted himself back in. With no more than a perfunctory wave, the three of them turned away and set sail for the fish dock. Gatty and Snout were left standing up to their hips in the warm water amongst a herd of mild-mannered buffalo, no longer surprised by humans and their strange behavior.

The two pilgrims didn't know where to go or what to expect. It didn't take them long to find out. Across the beach, a man shouted at them, and as Gatty and Snout staggered through the water towards him, he beckoned them. This man led them up to a large square stone building and showed them through a barred iron gate. But the moment they were inside, he bolted it.

“No!” Gatty shouted. “We're pilgrims! We're Christians!”

“We're English!” yelled Snout. “Come back!”

“Pilgrims!” Gatty bawled again.

Like the fisherman and his sons, the man didn't even give them a backward glance.

Gatty stared at Snout, appalled. “What is this? A prison?”