Spira Mirabilis (12 page)

The masks on the walls were alive with gaping mouths and blinking eyes
that said and saw nothing. Fulk was standing in the Ancestor Room. It was longer than he remembered – indeed, it stretched to infinity. He was altered too, his condition more advanced, and each breath was a painful gasp. Sofia walked down the stairs towards him, beautiful in a white gown and veil.

‘She looks every bit the queen,’ leered a voice behind him. Fulk wanted to ask the patriarch where he had come from, but a muted hammering was coming from the flagstones beneath their feet and the cleric was obviously impatient to begin the ceremony. ‘Contessa, take your place before they get here!’

He officiated the rite quickly, though the hammering became so loud that he had to shout. ‘… I now pronounce you king and queen,’ he cried, and handed Sofia the mace. She lifted her veil and said, ‘Now show me yours.’ The slabs covering the crypt below trembled.

Scabs and bits of hair came with his helmet as Fulk pulled it off. He handed it over to the patriarch, who took down a mask from the wall and replaced it with Fulk’s. ‘Now that you’re a real Guiscard,’ he said as he handed over the new mask, ‘you may kiss the bride.’

He looked down and when he saw it was Catrina’s face, he dropped it.

‘Infidel!’ the mask screamed as it fell to the ground. ‘You have deceived your queen!’

The rapping finally woke him. He’d slept only a couple of hours after having searched all day, until the queen finally gave it up as fruitless. He leaped quickly off his slab and put on his mask and surcoat before unbolting his door to find Basilius standing there, axe in hand. He was flanked by old Gustav, a knight who was a positive Methuselah by Lazar standards.

‘Come, Brother. We have more work tonight.’ Basilius turned and knocked on the next door without further explanation. Fulk pushed his way through the corridor of sleepy knights. ‘What work?’

The dipping flares of the torches dazzled the eyes as whispers
and rumours filled the corridor. The air was tense with expectation. Fulk, too concerned that Sofia had been found to worry about the lack of deference, stepped to the head of the line alongside Basilius, leading the train of marching men, though he knew not where they were headed. Amongst the stomp of boots on stone he couldn’t tell whether his questions had gone unheard or were being ignored. They passed through the coffin-lined workshop and finally reached the training hall, where the queen stood upon a closed coffin. In the flickering red torchlight, her eyes sparkled like a jackal. She bestowed a proud smile on Fulk as he entered.

A chill of fear shook him he saw the bloodied body of Sofia’s servant, Abdel, tied to a pillar. Could he have talked?

The patriarch stood nearby, pale and frightened. He’d obviously been witness to the torture.

‘Grand Master, I had the seneschal rally the men because there’s no time to lose.’

‘Are we under attack?’ he asked. If they were, surely they should not be congregating in the bowels of the city like a coven.

‘No – I’ve decided to make one last search. The Etrurian whore
must
be hiding in the Ebionite Quarter.’

Fulk’s mind raced as he thought about those dark slums. Was it possible that Sofia had returned? Surely not. ‘How do you know?’

‘Reason: the Contessa has experienced the Sands’ cruelty. She fled my palace to save her life, so she would not flee the city, even if she could find a way out. That would be exchanging one death for another. Therefore she’s hiding amongst our own, a canker in our bosom. We know Arik betrayed us, so she
must
have corrupted other servants. This one’ – she gestured casually at Abdel’s corpse – ‘revealed nothing. But time is short, so we are forced to more extreme measures. We shall make the Contessa’s protectors reveal her. We will show the Sown that they may live amongst
us but they remain strangers. This night you and your men will slaughter every newborn Ebionite within Akka’s walls.’

The fresh recruits and young journeymen, who were still outside of the discontented circle that orbited Basilius, turned automatically to Fulk. They did not love the Ebionites, but, infidel or no, there was a great difference between the bandits of the Sands and unarmed townsfolk.

Fulk in turn looked to the patriarch for support. ‘But – but— That would be criminal. Children, Chrysoberges—?’

The patriarch nodded sympathetically, but said calmly, ‘It is harsh, but the germane question is: is it
necessary
? Necessity does not admit of sin. The Contessa, we know, means to undermine the people of God. Given that, killing the apostates who shelter her would be a pious act.’

Disgusted, Fulk turned back to his mother. ‘Consider the tribes, then. They little care for the Sown, but this would demand vengeance – it would raise up a storm that could swallow us.’

‘You’ve always given them too much credit, Fulk. Such emotion is absent from the souls of those animals.’

Fulk looked around helplessly. The chain of command was too strong for those whose vows were still fresh to give voice to their doubts. The implacable masks of his men returned his stare silently. He knew better than to look for pity from Basilius, so he turned to old Gustav. ‘You know this is madness. There are poor Marians down there as well as Ebionites, living side by side. We won’t be able to tell them apart in the darkness.’

Before the old knight could say anything, Basilius answered, ‘We need not try.’ Then louder, so every doubter could hear, ‘If it crawls and cannot speak, you will kill it as you would a snake. God will know his own.’

Catrina stamped her foot on the coffin. ‘I know you all to be loyal sons of Akka. This night’s work will go hard, even on such stout hearts as yours. Think of the masks of your ancestors and
take strength knowing that Lazars not yet born will revere your example, even as you yourselves revere your forefathers’ sacrifice. God’s work is never easy. The path is narrow. You must blind your eyes and deafen your ears to pleas of false charity. Those slain tonight are saved from a life of sin and their souls in perdition will sing thanks to the axes that delivered them.’

She leaped from the podium into the cheering crowd that parted before her.

‘Deus lo Volt! Deus lo Volt!’ The thundering repetition of that sentiment was its own argument, convincing many silent vacillators that it was their own judgement that was awry.

The chanting surrounded Fulk and echoed through the arches. He had to shout to make himself heard. ‘Stop!’

The chanting died away and Queen Catrina stopped, but did not turn. ‘Yes, Grand Master?’

‘She’s not in Akka.’

Still not turning, her voice trembling, the queen asked, ‘You’re certain?’

There was no other sound in the chamber but the fugitive night wind dodging between the pillars and rush of water plunging underground. ‘I helped her escape.’

A tremor of appalled wonder rolled through the ranks. They pulled away from him like sheep panicking at the storm’s first peal. Basilius cleared his throat, breaking the horrified silence. ‘The Grand Master is lying. He’s no traitor, merely soft. He’s willing to sacrifice his honour with a lie because he thinks this cull would hurt you.’

The expectant knights nodded unconsciously.
Yes, surely that was it. Surely
.

She turned at last. ‘Is that so, Grand Master?’

Fulk strove to speak clearly so that all would hear. ‘I believe this massacre would be rash as well as wicked – but no, it’s the truth. Rather than let you sell her to Concord, I warned her.’

Basilius’s men went for their axes, but just as swiftly one young knight stepped in front of Fulk. The Contessa had ministered to him during last year’s Day of the Dead, and he could not stand by. ‘Please – let’s everyone remain calm. The Grand Master would not do such a thing idly. Your Majesty—’

‘Drop your weapon,’ the queen commanded the knight and his axe came clattering down immediately.

‘Which lie shall we believe? By your admission you have deceived us – so why should we believe you now?’

Fulk removed his mask. ‘Because your son is healed.’

She screamed – a terrible cry of betrayal and grief.

The young leper who had just defended his Grand Master took up his axe and backed away as from something infectious. The rest of the Lazars took a step back, moving as one, their grips tightening on their weapons: old and young, united once again.

Fulk’s face was that of a handsome – unsullied – young man.

‘All of you, listen.’ Fulk looked around the circle widening around him. ‘Something wonderful has happened. The Contessa’s son is come to dispel corruption.’ His voice failed as he saw in their eyes the reproach that he felt for himself. They looked at him like a thief caught out, a shirker, a
coward
. The circumstances of his fall did not matter. He had done the unforgivable: he had tainted their sacrifice.

‘You silly boy,’ the queen said, chidingly, ‘she has come to
corrupt
. You have betrayed your queen and – worse – your brothers.’

‘And God Almighty!’ exclaimed the patriarch. ‘O most wicked apostasy, what the Lord hath corrupted, no man or woman may purify. I know not what sorcery unwove your righteous scars but your soul, once so perfect, is now irredeemably mired.’

‘Congratulations, Grand Master Basilius,’ said the queen, her rage barely contained. ‘You have just been promoted. Take this traitor before your men and flay his clean new pelt from his bones. He shall be punished later.’

It took several of them to wrestle Fulk to the ground and bind him. ‘Let’s see if I can’t improve on perfection,’ Gustav said, and kicked him in the jaw.

‘We’ll take the city in quarters. Teams of twenty,’ said Basilius giddily, eager to consecrate his promotion with a sanguinary effusion. The journeymen stamped and bellowed ‘Deus lo Volt!’ in a kind of hysteria, as though by sheer volume they could purge themselves of all taint of loyalty to their betrayer.

The queen guffawed. ‘You preposterous man, I was
bluffing
. What good is a pile of dead babies to me? I want only one. No, you must take to the Sands: not a vulture drops from the sky without some toothless old shepherd noticing it. If the Contessa is dead, I want proof. If she’s not, I want her found. I’ll show her the strength it takes to be a queen.’

She climbed back onto the coffin. ‘Lazars, your honour is soiled. Only blood can blot out the stain.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live
. Be on guard; harden your hearts to false weakness. If my son can be seduced, then anyone is vulnerable – even Oltremare herself, unless you are strong. It is your queen who asks. How do you answer?’

‘
Deus lo Volt!
’ they cried, ‘
Deus lo Volt!
’

The earth-fallen clouds waltzed along the horizon, obliterating scrub and stone and whatever else they touched. Arik had shown her a variety of Jinn: some, like the
zar
she’d encountered, were little more than dust-devils, barely sentient but vicious as animals. but these were of the higher order: great whales of the desert. At this remove, Sofia could admire their beauty, but she was not in the mood. ‘Damn you,’ she whispered.

Her curse was directed not at the Jinn, but at the mare that had taken her water into her grave. With no water, she had no hope. Soon the winds would be stripping her desiccated corpse to a yellowed pile of bones. It would have been better to have been swallowed than to suffer death by thirst. Delirium hovered, and a hateful voice whispered that it was fitting that it ended this way. She’d been dying of thirst since Giovanni left her …

‘Ahhwah!’

Iscanno’s sudden cry punctured her stupor, reminding her it would not be her bones alone. She couldn’t just lie here and wait for death to find her. John Acuto and the Doc had both fought to their very last breath. But how to fight a desert? The rolling dunes were heaving waves; the curvilinear crests, ripples; the scattered sand, spume. It couldn’t be beaten any more than the sea could, or the wind.

Sofia stopped in her tracks. You
couldn’t
, so you
didn’t
… Ezra had taught her that the best sailors made an ally of the wind. She would have to go with it, without reservation or fear, in order to touch that power. Those demi-gods who’d so violently occupied
Jerusalem and who now guarded it so jealously were kin in some sense to the buio – so was it insane to challenge a great Jinni? What would stop it from unwrapping her flesh like peeling a ripe orange? Why, nothing – except that nothing in nature killed for pleasure. That was Man’s special vice.

She trekked towards the hilltop where the behemoths circled each other, carving the dunes by their passage. These were truly vast, sky-reaching things, and she was making for the largest of them, but the distance was deceptive, and an hour’s walk had brought her little closer – but still its howl filled everything, rattling her teeth, penetrating her body. Iscanno wailed, but she could not hear him.

‘Forgive me,
amore
,’ she told him. ‘I fear this monster is our only hope.’

She climbed the dune and saw at last its full majesty. Its spinning surface was unstable, shifting bands of red, pale yellow and blue soot and crystalline white that sparkled in the sun, as many shades as the Sands themselves possessed. It scalded the yellow air. Most terrifying was the contrast between its narrow base and the breadth of its uppermost reaches – like a mad acrobat spinning on one finger. Like the Wave, it was touched by the sickness that had got into the world, and like the Wave, it looked practically unstoppable.

‘Hey!’ she hollered, ‘hey! You!’

A blast of hot air nearly knocked her from her feet. She had its attention. ‘I’m not afraid of you!’ she lied. ‘You can tear me up or suck the breath right out of me – but this is my son! I see you recognise him.’

The pace of the storm’s spinning perceptibly slowed.

‘He’s here to make things better. You know it shouldn’t be this way and he can fix it. But not if he dies out here. I’m asking for help.’

The cone of whirling sand began retreating.

‘Wait—’