Dreamer: A Prequel to the Mongoliad (The Foreworld Saga) (3 page)

Brother
Leo shoved his way through the crowd and inserted himself between Raphael and
the lay brothers. “Enough,” he said. “We have been neglectful in our
hospitality. Did our guests not bring victuals? We should investigate as to the
possibility of a bottle of wine. And some cheeses perhaps. Those would be a proper
cause for celebration, especially in this house of God.” He glared at Cotsa and
Mante, the two who had been most vocal in their desire to hear the young
knight’s stories.

Brother
Mante was already fleeing for the door, Piro at his heels, eager to retrieve
the forgotten satchels. The other lay brothers nervously made the sign of the
cross as they tried to make themselves less noticeable to Brother Leo’s baleful
eye. He was not without fault, he knew. He too had been caught up by the young
knight’s tale.

He
turned and sat down heavily next to Raphael on the rough-hewn bench that served
as the room’s pulpit. “I have been a
Fraticelli
, a lesser brother, for
many years,” he said, “and I have lived here since this oratory was first
built. I should be more accustomed to the life I have chosen for myself — for
the devotion I have given myself over to.” He smiled at the contrite man
sitting next to him, a fatherly smile meant to reassure and comfort. “But, as
God continues to remind me — to remind each of us — we remain fallible, easily
led astray. We crave the company of others. We delight in stories of outrageous
adventure.” He shook his head. “We forget the burden laid upon those who tell
such stories.”

Raphael
said nothing. His hands fumbled over each other, and more than once his right
hand strayed toward the hilt of his sword.

What
atrocities has this young man experienced?
Brother Leo wondered. Brother Francis had railed
many times about the lack of faith in those who sent young men to die in
Crusades.
Are we not shepherds of a flock?
Francis had preached more
than once since returning from the Levant.
And does this flock not seek
guidance and humility and sanctuary from us?
This young man had been
trained for war, and he had survived a Crusade known for its brutality.
What
was left?
Brother Leo wondered.

 “During
the Crusade, I saw many whose faith in God failed to sustain them. On both
sides,” Raphael said, his voice soft enough that Brother Leo had to lean his
shoulder against the other man’s in order to make out the words. “Do you know
the Muslims believe in the same God as Christians do? They have a different
name for him — Allah.”

“I
have heard Brother Francis speak of the Muslim beliefs,” Brother Leo replied,
happy to be speaking of a different topic, even if it was one he was not well
versed in. “I have not had the opportunity to study them myself,” he admitted.

“Do
you know their traditional greeting?” Raphael put his hands together as he had
when he had first arrived. “
As-Salamu ‘Alaykum
,” he said. “It means
‘Peace be upon you.’ That is not dissimilar to the greeting you offered me. I
have heard Brother Francis use it as well.”

“He
finds it suits his mission — our mission — quite well,” Brother Leo said,
nodding.

“My
father was a German soldier,” Raphael said. “He fought for Frederick Barbarossa
and went with him to the Holy Land for the Crusade. When Frederick died in the
river crossing, my father completed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He ended up
fighting for King Richard of England against Saladin. However, when Richard
returned to England, my father stayed in Acre. My mother told me he became a
Knight of the Teutonic Order, but” — Raphael shrugged — “when I got old enough
to ask of him, the master of the order claimed to not know my father.”

Brother
Leo nodded. He continued to fiddle with his cross, playing the well-rehearsed
role of listener.

“I
grew up among Muslims,” Raphael continued, winding his way toward the
confession he sought to make. “I played in the shadow of Muslim minarets and mosques.
Their call to prayer — the
azan
— was as much a part of my childhood as
the shouts of the merchants in the market or any oratory from a pulpit. More
so, in fact, for it happened multiple times each day. How could I become a
Christian warrior and treat these people as my lifelong enemy?”

Brother
Leo shrugged as if the question was mysteriously opaque to him as well.

“When
I was old enough to think I knew something of the world, I stowed away on a
Venetian merchant ship. The captain found my audacity not without charm, and
instead of hurling me into the Mediterranean, he put me to work. I stayed with
him for several years, all the while yearning to set foot in Christendom — the
land where my father had come from. Finally, when the ship was in Trieste for
repairs, I managed to escape. I went north, hoping to find the Teutonic knights
again. They had gone to Transylvania to fight against the hordes from the east
— an enemy of which I had no knowledge. I could kill these infidels, I thought,
because they were strange to me. During my journey, I fell in with a party
traveling to Petraathen, the citadel of the
Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae
.
They took me in instead, and after years of training, I took their vows — pledging
myself to serve the Order and the Virgin.”

Brother
Mante returned, a bottle in either hand. “Ho,” he said. “A bounty has been
provided.” Piro crowded behind him, carrying an armful of wooden cups.

As
one of the bottles was opened and the cups were filled, Raphael sighed. “God is
testing me, isn’t he?” he asked.

Brother
Leo hesitated.
God tests all of us
was the thought he had, but he feared
such language would not assuage the young man’s despair. He wished Brother
Francis were with them. He would have words that would soothe the knight; he could
tell Raphael of his own trials as a knight of Assisi. He had been commanded to
fight against his own people when Assisi went to war with Perugia.

But
Brother Leo had not had such experience.
Nor
, he quickly admitted to
himself,
will I ever know what it is like to take up a sword against another
man
. Battle changed men; that was part of why Francis preached so
strenuously for nonviolent resolutions to conflict. Fighting your fellow man
was bestial behavior — worse than beasts, in fact, for no wolf or bear
assaulted kin for the specious reasons many nobleman and king clung to as their
rationale for going to war.

He
accepted a cup from Piro and swallowed a mouthful of the warm liquid, wincing
at the bitterness of the young wine. “God is inexplicable,” he said, moving his
tongue around his mouth in a vain effort to clear the taste. “He gives us both
anger and compassion in equal portions,” he continued, trying to recall one of
Brother Francis’s sermons. “Which of those two we choose to live our lives by is
how we demonstrate whether we are worthy of His grace.”

Raphael
had accepted a cup from Piro as well, but he rested it on his thigh as if he
was unaware of its presence. Brother Leo could not entirely blame him. A cup of
wine was a rare luxury at the hermitage, but even his dull palate could tell
this wine could have benefited from another season in its barrel.

Patience
was a virtue, especially among vintners.

Brother
Leo waited for Raphael to continue. The young man’s burden had been carried a
long distance, and it would take him a little while to shrug it off his
shoulders.

“I
killed men in Egypt,” Raphael said, finally stirring himself to speak again.
“Shortly after I took my vows, we were ordered to join the Crusade to take
Egypt from the Sultan, Saphadin. I went with my brothers, eager to make the
right choice. I had been instructed, over and over again until it was the only
thing I seemed to know, that the Virg — that God — wanted me to defend Him. I
must uphold God’s law, and to do so, I must defeat those who wish to subvert
His law. And that is what I did. I killed men in the name of God. Men, who, in
another time and place, might have been kind to me as a child. Why were they my
enemy? Because they believed that Jesus Christ was just a man and not the Son
of God? Does that make them any less deserving of my compassion?”

Brother
Leo tried to think of a suitable response, but nothing came to mind.

“I
arrive at your sanctuary, and even though you do not know me, you greet me with
affection. ‘May the Lord give you peace,’ is what you said.” Raphael twisted
his body so that he could look at Brother Leo. “And how do I return your
blessing? Your lay brothers ply me with requests to tell them of my exploits,
and I agree to their request.” His voice was agitated, rising from deep within
his throat. “The Crusade was a failure, and yet I am looked upon as a hero for
what I did. I speak of my actions not with shame and revulsion but with pride.
How can my spirit be so…so broken? How can a man suffer to live with this
desire to please God — to train and take up arms in His name — and yet still
live a compassionate life?”

A
lmost
a year had passed since the Crusaders had taken the tower in the Nile, and
still Damietta remained inviolate. The catapults on the walls hurled their
deadly payloads less frequently, and most of what came tumbling out of the sky
was loose rock — the stores of the alchemical fire had long been emptied. The
defenders hurled rocks at the Christian war parties without much enthusiasm, as
if their efforts were expected as part of the dialogue of war, but they had no
heart for it any longer.

The
Crusaders had little heart left for the siege either. Over the last six months,
it had become apparent to John of Brienne and the few noblemen who stood with
him that Damietta held little military value. As difficult as it was for the
Christians to get in, it would be equally difficult for them to get out again,
especially if the Sultan’s armies filled up the flood plain behind them.

Saphadin,
the man who had been Sultan when the Crusade began, had died shortly after the
tower assault. His son, Al-Kamil, who had been ruler of Egypt when the Crusade
began, now held sway over the entirety of the Muslim domain. While his father
remembered some of the atrocities of the previous Crusade and never relented in
his desire to drive the Christians out of the Levant, his son appeared to have
a different perspective. He had offered, more than once, terms of peace that
seemed too good to be true.

The
legate from Rome, Pelagius, believed this offer of peace was a lie, facile
words offered by a heathen who could not be trusted. Rome wanted Damietta, he
insisted, and Rome would have the city.

Of
the original company of Shield-Brethren who had joined the Crusade at Acre,
only eighteen remained. Of those, four could still carry arms — and would do so
at a moment’s notice — but they would not ride to meet the enemy. The enemy
would have to come to them.

Eptor,
the farmer’s son who had charged across the narrow bridge with Raphael, was one
of those four. The wounds still plaguing him were not physical. His body had
healed and his spirit remained resolute, but his mind was dimmed by the
presence of a shadow. At first he had merely been prone to fevers, but as the
winter passed, his bouts of night sweats gave way to more disturbing signs.
Eptor began to speak of their dead brothers as if they were still alive.

Raphael,
with whom the stricken farmer’s son had formed an unshakeable bond, was tasked
with keeping his ailing comrade within the clutch of Shield-Brethren tents.
While the Shield-Brethren did not abandon one of their own, regardless of his
mental condition, there would be others in the Christian camp who would not be
as tolerant of their brother’s disturbed speech.
The last thing this
morale-stricken camp needs is a rumor of witchcraft and demonic possession
,
Calpurnius had instructed Raphael.
Keep him — and us — safe
.

The
task had been fairly simple at first, in that Eptor was more than happy to
follow Raphael like a faithful dog. And then the priest — Francis of Assisi,
the founder of the
Ordo Fratrum Minorum
— arrived, and his revolutionary
exhortation for peace changed everything.