
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4616811.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Football_RPF
  Relationship:
      Luís_Figo/Zinedine_Zidane, Luís_Figo_&_Zlatan_Ibrahimović
  Character:
      Luís_Figo, Zlatan_Ibrahimović, Zinedine_Zidane, Henrik_Larsson, Didier
      Drogba, José_Mourinho
  Additional Tags:
      Slavery, Slave_Trade, Non-Sexual_Slavery, Religious_Discussion, Muslim
      Character, Alternate_Universe_-_Historical
  Series:
      Part 4 of The_Book_of_the_Green_Field
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-08-20 Words: 26962
****** The Tale of the Priest ******
by Guede
Summary
     In the death throes of the Burji Sultanate, a soldier befriends a
     slave and sows the seeds of a new era.
Notes
     The rape/non-con is off-screen and only discussed, but as it happened
     when the character was very underage, I'm erring on the side of
     caution with the warnings.
     Muslim religion and culture is deliberately portrayed from the
     perspective of an (informed, as enlightened as I thought I could get
     away with considering the time period, but still) outsider.
     Set in an Alternate World Mameluke Egypt loosely based on the year
     1486, i. e. I liberally raid from actual history when it works with
     the plot and make up stuff when it doesn’t.
See the end of the work for more notes
It was a common observation that Luís Figo resembled more a trickster who dealt
in oil lamps and seduced wives than a soldier, yet that was the trade he
practiced. He was of average height for the male populace of Cairo, given the
regular influxes of towering slave recruits from the countries of the Black Sea
for the Mameluke armies, with a shock of black hair that he kept cropped just
long enough to push back from his brow and black eyes that typically sparkled
with ill-suppressed amusement. He was broad-shouldered and well-built rather
than lean, and so often suffered in comparison to the lithe beauty of the
Arabian stallion upon which he was nearly always to be found, but nonetheless
he was liked by the sultan, respected by his peers, loved by his men and rarely
lacking in amiable companionship during his leisure hours. His familial
background was a mystery and he himself tended to dismiss inquiries with the
offhand remark that that was of no account now.
“And even if it were, do you really think I’d admit to having any Northern
stock in me? It was only a few centuries ago that they gave up the longboats
and monastery-burning,” Luís laughed. He stopped behind a pillar as a hot wind
billowed out the shading drapes of the balcony, sipping at his rose-water
sherbet. “So why are the merchants being asked to remain in their houses this
time, Zizou? If Kait Bey’s about to hike the taxes, I doubt that that’ll make
it any more palatable.”
Zinedine glanced over his shoulder as he continued to lead them through the
loggias, amusement playing around his mouth but never quite blooming into a
smile. “If you’re still allowed to roam the city, I’d think that it’s hardly a
crisis. It’s simply that the sultan wishes to tour his construction projects
and in the interest of managing the disturbance his retinue will cause…”
“And you and I are touring your barracks simply because you had this sudden
urge to reconfirm that you’re one of the strongest amirs in the court, I
suppose?” The little puddle of water around the mound of chipped ice suddenly
ran out and Luís slurped loudly, then made a theatrical wince. He grinned at
the other man’s look and wrapped both hands around the goblet, giving nature a
good kick along; the day wasn’t so advanced yet that the heat alone would do
it.
“We’re not touring the barracks. I just want you to see something,” Zinedine
said, in his typical laconic fashion. He continued to lead them through the
loggias and halls at a sedate pace, so it couldn’t be terribly important.
Luís stifled a relieved sigh and tried a little harder at peeking through the
tight latticework shutters for a glimpse of the females of the household. The
war with the Turks had given the sultan a pretext for sending some of the
senior amirs to the borders, but that had hardly suppressed the factionalism
that underpinned everything in Cairo. Instead it’d allowed many of the younger,
restless courtiers a chance at causing trouble, and the patriotism floating
about in the air hardly served to curb their more foolish intentions. War was
good for spending, but terrible for trade, and trade paid for the silk on Luís’
back and the good horse waiting in the stables and the lovely house he had in
the Venetian quarter.
Eventually the two of them emerged above a dusty courtyard. The fountain in the
center appeared to be broken, and a harassed-looking engineer was poking about
some of its parts that had been laid out on the ground while a youth wrenched
at its remaining works. He was stripped to the waist and matted over with the
fine bone-colored sand of Cairo so it was difficult to make out his age, but he
was certainly too tall to be an apprentice. Weedy still, but he promised to be
an imposing specimen of physicality in a few years.
“You’ve already figured out which one.” Zinedine leaned against the shady side
of a pillar, hands folded together before him. His narrowed eyes moved from
Luís to the young man below. “He’s around seventeen, near as I can tell.
Understands the Circassians’ tongues, but they don’t like him and I can’t get
one to tell me why.”
“One of your newest Mameluke group? He’s the looks of being a credit to your
house,” Luís said.
The engineer squatted down and fiddled with two parts, trying to force them
together at different angles with the occasional curse for the whirling breeze,
which pulled the sand directly up into the sky. In the drained fountain, the
youth paused for a few moments and watched the other man. Then he happened to
glance up and saw Luís and Zinedine, and he grimaced, quickly going back to
jamming a rod into the center spout.
“He’s mine as of a week ago. Before that he’d been through about three other
amirs’ households, and none of them wanted to manumit him,” Zinedine dryly
replied. His eyes opened a touch against the wind, allowing a slight amused
glimmer to be perceived. “They passed him on as a…debt settlement each time, I
think.”
Sometimes the tendency of his friend towards the enigmatic grated on Luís, but
he suffered it without complaint and merely looked more closely at the
young—well, so he’d still be a slave, and all but guaranteed to stay one. After
that many households he couldn’t be counted on to remain loyal even to the man
who did take a chance and freed him, and that was the entire purpose of the
Mameluke.
“He’s too well-built to turn down, then?” Luís didn’t bother looking over
before he snorted and shook his head. “I don’t think of that all the time,
Zizou. I meant it in the most straightforward fashion.”
“You’re an infidel. Of course you didn’t.” The lazy, sensual tease in
Zinedine’s voice came and went like a cool breeze in the desert, and when Luís
glanced over this time, the other man stared impassively back. “You’re dripping
sherbet on my floor.”
With a burdened sigh, Luís held the goblet over the edge of the loggia and
gently flicked his thumb against its stem so the drops clinging to it would fly
off. Then he pulled in his arm and drank, watching the two men work on the
fountain. The slave seemed to have forgotten that they or anyone else was
around and was poking at the spout with quite an intent expression on his face.
He wasn’t simply wrenching at it either, despite the occasional snarls from the
engineer to watch his clumsy hands—and even from the second floor, Luís could
see the resentment flashing from the slave’s eyes every time. No, he…he clearly
had a plan in mind, and Luís also had had a plan in mind for disturbing that
calmness of Zinedine’s, but he’d lost it as soon as the slave had turned
around.
A few moments later, he’d managed to collect himself enough to shrug. “Even
this infidel hasn’t often seen a back like that. If he’s that recalcitrant, why
does he still have all his…does he have his tongue still?”
“He does.” The tone of Zinedine’s voice suggested that that was the most
surprising fact. “He’s very tall, and very bright, and I suppose that’s why
people continued to have hope that he might turn out a credit to his teachers.”
“More like a display of their skill with a whip,” Luís muttered. “Well, so
what’s to do? You’re not known for being terribly charitable when it comes to
your forces—in fact, you’re downright hypocritical for insisting on not using
anyone who’s willing to buy their way into service.”
Zinedine stared at him, face like one of those ancient, ancient statues of the
old blood-thirsty pharaohs. Then the other man shook his head, silently tipping
off the pillar and onto his feet. “I wasn’t going to take him but when they
dragged him out I thought I heard him say something in Swedish.”
Luís blinked. “Swedish? But he’s a—”
“He’s not Circassian. The ones fresh from the mountains refuse to deal with
him, and the older ones might have forgotten their roots somewhat but they’re
uneasy around him as well. Come on.” After a few steps, Zinedine looked back.
His face betrayed a faint hint of impatience. “I want to know if it is Swedish.
And then we can have our meal.”
“I didn’t realize I was staying to eat,” Luís said. The wind had blown his
clothing about so that when he began to move, the silk stretched dangerously
and he had to spend a moment briskly shaking the folds loose. Then he caught up
to the other man’s side. “So where’s your wife?”
Zinedine briefly rubbed at his upper lip with a finger. “Which one?”
“The one who thinks I’m too revolting to be polite to.” Luís drained the rest
of his sherbet, sucking in the few remaining ice slivers. He cracked them
between his teeth and grinned when Zinedine winced.
“She’s visiting a sick aunt all day, and I don’t need to be at court till
tomorrow,” Zinedine said. “What did you do, anyway? She wanted me to ban you
from our house.”
“I just recited a little poetry about her eyes,” Luís said, willing his own
eyes to gleam with innocence. “Arabic poet, utterly chaste. Purely
complimentary.”
From the way Zinedine rolled the shoulder nearest Luís, he didn’t believe a
word of it. But he wasn’t objecting, either. “If it’s not in the Qu’ran, she
doesn’t approve. Since when do you memorize Arabic poetry?”
“I’ll tell you later, with demonstration,” Luís chuckled. “First introduce me
to this Swede of yours.”
* * *
By the time they reached the fountain, the slave had managed to remove whatever
had been blocking up the water and a small trickle was running out of the
spout. He’d subsequently been pushed out of the way by the engineer, who
instantly latched onto Zinedine with much exclaiming and gesticulating about
how he’d just about solved the problem.
“Idiot,” the slave muttered, shoving his toes into the dirt.
Luís looked sharply at him and when the youth noticed, he flinched and
instantly dropped his gaze, hunching over. It wasn’t a position that suited
either his body or his pride: his shoulders stiffly twitched back and forth as
he fought to appear harmless.
“Don’t do that. You’ll ruin your back and neck before you’re thirty,” Luís said
in Swedish.
The slave’s head went up. He stared openmouthed at Luís till the engineer
suddenly bustled in, smacking the poor boy on the side and thigh and scolding
him for being so insolent. The slave jerked away and his fingertips jerked in
towards his palms before he controlled himself. No wonder his back was a mess
of whip-scars. Maybe a civilian wouldn’t catch that, but anyone with a modicum
of military training wouldn’t have stood for it.
“Leave him be. I’m busy looking him over,” Luís told the engineer, going back
to Arabic. Then he stepped forward and grabbed the boy’s arm, dragging him over
to one of the deeply recessed doorways that pierced the lower walls. He was
aware of Zinedine radiating smugness behind him, but that could always been
seen to during their meal.
After the first surprised second, the slave stiffened up and then relaxed only
as much as he had to in order to move. He all but forced Luís to pull hard
enough to send him bumping against the door, then settled back with an ill-
disguised look of anger. Luís grabbed the boy’s jaw and pushed his thumb
between the boy’s lips, and after a very long moment, the boy opened his mouth.
“And nobody’s knocked out your teeth either. You’re a living miracle,” Luís
muttered. He let go of the boy’s jaw and waited. Then he sighed and waved his
hand. “You can stand back up. I’m Luís. Where did you learn Swedish? You
weren’t born there, not with that nose.”
“I can’t help my nose or my birth,” the boy said after a moment. His voice
sounded as if it’d just about finished dropping, so he probably had nearly
reached his full height. A good thing, since much taller and he’d have to ride
one of those giant chargers from France. “My lord.”
Luís put his hands on the boy’s upper arms and squeezed them, then moved down a
few fingers’ width and squeezed again. He repeated the motion till he’d reached
the wrists. “Oh, I’m just a friend of your lord, so here’s some friendly
advice: idiots live longer than loudmouths.”
The boy wanted to say something, but after flicking his eyes to Luís, he simply
pressed his lips together. He submitted to Luís’ examination of his thighs and
calves with a kind of silent sullenness.
“And longest-lived of all are those who know when to talk and when not to. I’m
not the only one in Cairo who understands Swedish—there aren’t many of us, but
there are a few.” A shadow slipped over Luís’ feet and he stood up, nodding to
Zinedine. “He can ride?”
“He’s had a full training regime,” Zinedine confirmed. “So, do you still need a
man-servant?”
Luís shrugged. “Ah, I don’t know. I put up with enough sourpusses with the
merchants. Can he tell jokes?”
They stood there, Zinedine composed and unruffled if a bit puzzled in the
strengthening sunlight, Luís half-shadowed, and the boy slouched into the dark
corner. He slowly raised his head to meet Luís—he deliberately straightened his
posture—and shrugged himself. “You like Swedish or Arabic?”
“Actually, I like Portuguese best but you can learn that later. Zizou, you mind
washing him up before he and I go?” Luís asked.
Zinedine lifted a hand and a servant appeared out of nowhere to take the order
and lead the boy off. Then he stepped forward and laid a hand on Luís’
shoulder, using it to lightly steer Luís out of the doorway and back to the
steps. “So it is Swedish.”
“It is. And you’ve just gotten me a raging headache, I can already tell,” Luís
said.
“That’s why you’re staying for lunch,” Zinedine replied.
* * *
The broad expanse of Zinedine’s naked back was a wonder, smooth and white like
fine Carrara marble but warm, pliant beneath Luís’ hand. A few scars crept
round the man’s sides to just touch the edges—Zinedine had bought into the
Mamelukes, but had earned his amir status with the sword—but otherwise it was
unmarked. Lovely to stroke, brush knuckles around the little bumps of the
spine.
He arched languidly beneath the caresses, burying his face more deeply into the
divan’s cushions. “Bring my wives back something nice from Alexandria.”
Luís stopped petting him. “Excuse me? I’m not the one married to them.”
Zinedine rolled over and stretched his arms out in front of himself, silk
cushions sliding all about them. One nudged up against Luís’ limp prick, then
slipped ticklishly between his thighs. A moment later a knee firmly followed
it.
“You make a lousy courtesan,” Luís told him, reaching up. He rubbed the man’s
head, letting his fingers rasp over the minute stubble just pushing up from the
skin. “Where, oh where are the locks of ebony?”
“I’ll be sailing up the Nile a week after you, but I won’t have the time to go
down to the bazaars.” And as if he’d just informed Luís that it was a sunny
day, he leaned over and kissed Luís, mouth lingering and soft, while his hand
quite brazenly played with Luís’ right nipple. His knee began to move in a slow
up-and-down motion. “Anyway, you seem to be better at pleasing them.”
“Because I am not married to them.” For a moment, Luís did consider simply
giving in and pushing himself across that hand’s-span of space. The divan was
soft, Zinedine was becoming rather insistent, and currently he was between
regular female companionship. And then he flopped on his back and turned his
head to stare at the delicate brass lamp hanging from the ceiling. “Why are you
going to Alexandria? After all these years, don’t you trust me to make the trip
by myself?”
Zinedine’s hand stilled. Then it swept downwards, twisting about so his fingers
pulled furrows through the line of hair running down the center of Luís’ chest.
He sat up and gazed down so the stray beams of sunlight from the shuttered
windows crossed to make a patchwork of his features. It appeared he wasn’t in a
punning mood, caressing aside. “I’ve been given a temporary post there, to help
engage ships against the Ottoman pirates.”
“You’ve been given a naval command? J—well, at least it’s not Jerusalem,” Luís
said, hastily modifying his words. He tried to sit up himself, only to have the
other man climb on to straddle his waist. “You said it wasn’t a crisis
earlier…because Kait Bey is about to take measures to avoid one?”
“It’s a fighting post, not one of exile.” But Zinedine sounded far from sure,
and well he should. His illustrious campaigning career didn’t include a single
naval action and so this move could very well be meant to set him up for a long
fall. “It’ll be keeping me far too busy to know what you’re up to.”
No upriver reunions, Luís accordingly translated, and the thought that followed
hard on the heels of that suddenly chilled him. “Is that the purpose? You’re
too fond of unbelievers?”
Zinedine put both his hands on Luís’ shoulders and shifted lower, till his
buttocks had comfortably cradled the one damned part of Luís’ body that still
lacked concern. “You’re too nervous.”
Luís pushed up on his elbows and opened his mouth to retort, but then he
thought the better of it. Instead he simply waited, gazing up at the other man.
If Zinedine wanted to go on and impale himself, and thus completely ruin any
chances Luís had for sensible thought…well, the man could, and with Luís’
fervent blessing. But that hardly meant that he’d forget to ask later, at a
more inconvenient time for the other man. Patience was hardly the province of
any particular person or people, though it was a difficult skill to learn.
“It may or may not be a warning,” Zinedine finally said, looking away. His
fingers moved restlessly over Luís’ skin, stirring the blood beneath it into
sluggish warmth. “But however it is, I’ll be under close scrutiny while I’m in
Alexandria.”
And slow as honey, but a thousand times sweeter, understanding came to Luís.
“Oh. You need a favor. And I’ll wager a good horse that it has something to do
with—”
Zinedine turned back, changing from sculpture to beautiful, if irritated, man.
His eyebrows rose. “Is your mind still on that boy? I just wished to have some
time where I didn’t have to listen to your complaints about the lack of good
hired help these days.”
“Stop acting so coy,” Luís snorted, sweeping his hands up over Zinedine’s
thighs. He cupped the man’s hips and used them to pull himself up, and
incidentally slipped his stiffening prick beneath the other man. “You know damn
well I prefer men. And that I’m going to ask questions now till you either
throw me out or tell me.”
“It’s not coyness. It’s caution, since I’m not sure what’s going on,” Zinedine
said. A mild reproof, and made even flimsier when he lifted himself a little so
the head of Luís’ cock pushed up along the curve of his ass. “I need you to
take something up for me. A small package. It’d leave plenty of room in your
saddlebags for all the bribes you use to keep on everyone’s good side, despite
your lack of manners.”
Luís lifted his upper lip in a wry smile, but didn’t bother attempting to
stretch the false good humor to his eyes. If he was too nervous, then he rather
thought he had good reason to be. “What is it that you’d trust to an infidel
than to one of your own? We’ve a good understanding, Zizou, and I thought that
that encompassed the fact that I don’t risk my neck for no good cause.”
“That boy, the horse he’d be riding back with you on, plus a large chest of
gold. It’ll be in that, the little rag-wrapped bundle.” A moment, and then
Zinedine twisted slightly so just a thumb’s-width of his body gave way to Luís’
prick. He moved well enough, but his eyes were now narrowed nearly to needles,
giving away nothing and everything of his internal state. “If you’re so
worried, then don’t look at what it is.”
“Is that a piece of advice or a prerequisite of the contract?” Luís asked in a
dry tone. He pulled himself up higher so he could lean on his hands and
Zinedine sank nearly down to his balls. His lip suddenly hurt, and when Luís
realized why and stopped biting it, he inadvertently let a gasp free. “Plus
you?”
Zinedine’s eyes slightly widened, enough for a flash of injured dignity to pass
through his thick lashes, long as a girl’s. He arched, muscles tensing like a
drawstring yanked tight. “I never bargain for myself. I was under the
impression you knew that.”
“Well, sometimes I—” Luís swore in Portuguese, one hand slipping as Zinedine
bent like a supple bow and laved up the side of Luís’ throat. He grabbed at the
other man’s waist for balance and Zinedine slackened his body’s grip on Luís’
prick, slid them both closer to the inferno of hell. “God’s bones.”
A little touch of teeth had Luís swallowing hard, the support of his other arm
beginning to turn shaky. He leaned back to regroup and Zinedine instantly
pressed forward, not allowing him the chance. “Allah has no such earthly
accoutrements,” he said primly. “You are in my house, therefore you will
respect my faith.”
“Oh, I do. I have nothing but—” Luís gave up and fell backwards, pulling the
other man with him “--respect for your God and his—” slung his now free arm
around Zinedine’s neck, used it to hold the bastard in place for the kiss
“—wonderful creations.”
Zinedine snorted and stopped up Luís’ mouth, forcing them back down onto the
cushions. His knees bumped up against Luís’ ribs, then squeezed hard around
them as he began to move, shoulders to hips to ankles smoothly sliding over
Luís like some piece of silk fallen from heaven, all-enveloping and damnably
insistent. He wrapped his fingers around Luís’ biceps when Luís tried to adjust
him, then pulled his hands down to Luís’ elbows and the hard even pressure was
but a mere echo of what his clenching, greedy body did to Luís’ cock a moment
later.
Another taste of Zinedine’s mouth, and then Luís gathered up enough of himself
to turn them over, putting the uppity Saracen in his place. Though said Saracen
was grunting and moaning as if he hardly noticed who was where, and really,
once Luís had gotten his knees planted, he didn’t much care either. He was
vastly more interested in the how of their current arrangement, and a little
later, the then.
“Ah, damn. You’ve made me late for prayers,” Zinedine muttered.
The sometimes lyrical, sometimes outright brassy call of the muezzin trickled
through the windows, slowly stirring Luís out of his tired daze. He sucked air
back into his throat, then stuttered its release in a lazy half-growl as he
raised himself up to look at the other man.
Zinedine silently returned the gaze for several seconds. Then he smiled. “Thank
you.”
“All right, I’ll do it,” Luís mumbled. “It’s extra if we get more attacks than
usual, though. And I am not doing your damn gift-shopping for you.”
* * *
Zinedine was true to his word so far as the boy’s mount went: he’d dug out a
nearly European-sized crossbreed from somewhere and the beast almost made the
boy’s lanky frame look normal. And he’d been telling the truth about the boy’s
training as well, though the lack of actual practice was evident in the over-
hard hands and the constant accidental kneeing.
“No—look. No, look. At me,” Luís said. He waited till the stream of half-
stifled cursing had ceased and he could see at least a glimmer of the boy’s
eyes peeking from beneath the scowling brow. Then he reached over.
The boy stiffened immediately, and then again when he saw that Luís was
reaching for his waist. His jaw tightened and so did his hands, which tightened
the reins and brought the horse to a jerky stop.
Luís paused, then looked about. It wasn’t a very busy street, though the few
people traveling it seemed more than happy to entertain themselves by watching
them. “Oh, well. You went any farther and you’d give this poor animal an
incurable case of curb-mouth. Look, they should’ve told you there are two parts
to a horseman: your legs and everything else.” He tapped the boy’s waist, then
withdrew and did not miss the increase in puzzlement in the boy’s face. “That’s
the dividing line. Everything above it doesn’t matter when you’re in the
saddle.”
“They did tell me,” the boy finally said. “I just never got to—”
“Well, you are now, so you might as well make the best of it. You’ve got a good
pair of legs, so trust them. Stop worrying that they’ll do something wrong.”
And then Luís clucked his tongue, causing his own horse to leap forward a bit
too eagerly. It was used to getting a good long afternoon ride but Zinedine’s
impromptu lunch had seen those plans dashed.
But it was overall a good-natured animal and so Luís needed only a second to
rein it back into a slow walk. He waited for the boy to catch up, and then
slowed his mount more so they were nearly abreast of each other. The other
horse’s eye was no longer rolling in confusion, though it still snorted heavily
at each unintentional sawing of the bit.
“Better,” Luís said. “Not the best you could do, though.”
The boy blinked. “I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, my lord. That
seems dangerous.”
Luís looked hard at him and the boy reverted to stiff back, clutching knees,
averted gaze. Then he turned away, wondering briefly about Zinedine’s ultimate
intentions, and then laughed. “Very true. You’re seventeen and you still have
such a mouth on you? I’m surprised.”
“You said you wanted jokes, my lord,” the boy muttered, still looking at the
saddlehorn.
“I did. I think I also said my name was Luís and not ‘my lord.’” An oil-seller
driving his mule-cart the other way rounded the corner and Luís nudged their
horses aside a few feet. The oil-seller looked up and saw them, then lifted his
hands as if to slap the reins against the mule’s back, eyes burning with
intense revulsion.
If he’d done that, he would’ve still run into them. Luís did the man the
courtesy of edging over a bit more before he casually brushed back his robes,
letting the light catch on the sword hanging from his side. Then he calmly
continued on while the cart came closer and closer…and at the last possible
moment, shifted as well so the road accommodated both of them.
“You’re a Christian.” The boy was staring at Luís, his mouth a little open. His
hands had gone a little slack and consequently he’d fallen slightly behind,
though he hastily moved to correct that now. “You’re—not—but you’re not
wearing—and you have a sword in the city.”
“Because Luís Figo is not only a Christian, but also, for the purposes of the
sultan’s bureaucracy, a Venetian. Venice’s doge negotiated a long time ago for
the right to have his people ruled, even when they’re in Egypt, under their own
laws.” Luís angled his mount so they strayed more towards the center of the
street, but didn’t bother trying to regain his former position. They were
nearing the busier sections of the city and anyway, it was cooler in the shade
of the buildings. “You’d be doing me a favor if you stopped calling me ‘my
lord.’ The Saracens do like Venetian glass and shipping, but they’re not so
fond of seeing another Muslim ruled by a Christian.”
“I’m…” Then the boy looked away, staring at the rows and rows of wood-lattice
shutters they were passing. After a moment he lifted and dropped the shoulder
nearest to Luís. “Whatever you say.” He paused again. “But you’re not
from…Italy.”
Luís grinned and rubbed at his nose. “No, I’m not. Spent a lot of time there,
though. So where are—you know, I don’t think we ever really finished
introductions. What’s your name?”
That earned him another bird-quick glance, followed by a long, tense silence.
“Zlatan.”
Which wasn’t a Saracen name, so…Luís had just been given the boy’s born name,
from before he’d been enslaved. Another sign that the Mameluke system of
indoctrination, so superior to molding its material than the Church was these
days, had somehow failed with this one. “That’s not Swedish.”
“No. But that’s where I was born. Where I’m from,” Zlatan said. He lifted his
chin and levelly met Luís’ eyes, daring the other man to object.
And…there was something, something in the way the boy drew back his shoulders
and stared fiercely out at the world. Something that made Luís want to go back
to Zinedine and—well, he wasn’t sure if he’d be cursing or thanking. But either
way, he had to laugh again, because Zizou prided himself on his eye and he’d
obviously thought Luís would simply find the boy amusing.
“It’s a nice country, though I like wintering elsewhere,” Luís finally replied.
He turned forward and raised his arm to point ahead of them. “That’s where
we’re going. Home.”
Zlatan looked slantwise, like a cat pretending not to care. His lips twitched
just before he dropped his head, shrugging again. “Your house is very nice.”
“You’re not very funny.” Luís shook his head, stifling a third laugh. “Never
mind, you’re young. You’ll get to learn.”
* * *
Henrik met them in the stables and held the reins of Luís’ horse while Luís
dismounted. Then he tossed them to a waiting stableboy and moved over to take
Zlatan’s horse, only to find that the boy had already slipped off and was in
the middle of untacking his mount.
“Zlatan, Henrik. Henke, Zizou’s newest way of making sure I suffer for my
unbelief,” Luís said in Swedish. He clapped Henrik on the shoulder, then gave
his horse a rub on the neck. The beast immediately twisted round and tried to
lip at his hair, forcing him to hastily slip behind the other man. “Get him fed
and settled in before you start asking how his village did their herring, all
right?”
“Drogba is here to see you. He says a problem’s come up,” Henrik replied. He
jerked his chin towards the right receiving room, sent a servant running to the
kitchen and took the saddle from Zlatan himself without stumbling in the
slightest.
Zlatan stared curiously around at them all. “Who’s Zizou?”
He’d asked in Swedish, so now Henrik did stop and stare, the saddle
accidentally slipping from his hands. A flicker of amusement finally broke
through Zlatan’s perpetual wary sullenness and he easily bent to catch the
heavy piece of tack. Then he pulled it out of Henrik’s hands and tossed it over
a shoulder as if it were made of paper, when it certainly wasn’t: Zinedine
could be irritatingly obscure about everything except his bribery, which
gleamed from the saddle in heavy gold-and-gem enamelwork.
“Zizou is Zinedine Zidane, one of the amirs and a very good friend of mine, who
made a gift of you to me.” Luís dusted himself off and unbuckled his sword,
then slung the sword-belt over his shoulder. He pushed the heel of his hand
over his neck, then sniffed at it before deciding he was presentable enough.
“Oh,” Zlatan said. His tone had closed down again, and when he looked at
Henrik, his eyes were flatly emotionless. “Where does this go?”
Henrik was still staring, though Luís thought the remark about herring would’ve
been enough warning. When spoken to he blinked, then gave himself a shake and
put up his hands. “Here, give that to me.”
“I’m not going to drop it or pick out any of the jewels. Just tell me where I’m
supposed to put it.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it and you go on to the kitchen.”
The stubborn li…well, he was hardly little, but he certainly fixated on an idea
once it was in his head. Even if it wasn’t one he particularly liked. Luís ran
his fingers through his hair a few times. “Zlatan, Henke’s got about ten years
and a hundred or so battles on you. If he tells you to do something, do it.
Anyway, that saddle’s pretty but it wouldn’t stand more than a brisk trot, so
it’s hardly worth arguing over.”
He felt a hot, sulky gaze sweep over him and turned, only to find Zlatan
depositing the saddle into Henrik’s hands with all the delicacy of a child
flinging a stone into a river. Henrik’s eyebrows rose, but he managed the
unwieldy thing well enough. He spoke to Zlatan, too low for Luís to hear, but
it seemed kindly since Zlatan lost that nervous edge and instead began glancing
towards the kitchen.
They would get along well enough, Luís decided. If Henrik hadn’t liked the boy,
he would’ve told him where the latrines were instead. And so Luís left them to
make their acquaintances and went to go deal with one of the innumerable pains
in the ass associated with organizing a lucrative, successful caravan.
Drogba hadn’t been waiting too long and the dent in the divan said he’d been
enjoying those few minutes, but the moment Luís walked into the room, the man
was rolling his eyes and spreading his hands. “Figo, where have you been? I’ve
been trying to reach you all day because I know—”
“No more advance money unless you actually show me the lamed camel, but I’ll
double your last payment in Alexandria,” Luís immediately said. He normally
didn’t like forgoing the haggling, but he wanted to get on to seeing what else
Zinedine had foisted on him.
The other man looked at him for a moment. Then Drogba flashed him a smile and
stooped to retrieve a half-filled goblet from a low table. “You Europeans are
all alike. You think of everything in terms of money.”
“You want to say this won’t cost me anything?” A soft rasp and the whisper of
cooler air behind Luís alerted him and he reached back to wrap his fingers
around his own goblet. The ride through town hadn’t been particularly long, but
it was a very dry day and his parched throat was heartily thankful for the
draught.
It was very clear how tempted Drogba was to answer in the affirmative, but the
man was one of the more sensible camel-drivers in Cairo, which was why he knew
better than to lie. He could wrangle and extort all he pleased and Luís
wouldn’t mind much, since that was the nature of business, but the moment he
outright betrayed a trust, his head would be rolling in the dust. Luís had been
forced to that point several times before he’d finally come across Drogba and
thanked God that he had, since all those messy terminations of employment had
been beginning to cause trouble.
“Well, it will, but it won’t be going to me. Not unless you’re feeling
appreciative about my foresight and anxiety to see this trip succeed,” Drogba
finally said. He spun his goblet by the stem, then tipped the rim against his
mouth while it was still whirling so the sound of his sucking was accompanied
by the tinkling of the half-melted ice. “I’ve just gotten news that the
sultan’s setting extra guards and tolls on the usual routes. It’ll be triple
what it usually is to get through them.”
At least, and now Luís would have to waste more time and money trying to find
out which amir had been given the responsibility of providing the extra staff.
He’d already spent the better part of two months procuring the proper permits
and exceptions and now he’d wager near half of them would be useless. Not to
mention that the narrow window of time meant the new ones would cost an arm and
a leg. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn…you wouldn’t be here if that was all, though.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Drogba smiled with deceptive placidity. “When I first
received the news I was just as distraught as you are now, but I believe that a
way is always provided. So I consulted with some elders and I think there is an
alternative.”
Luís swirled his cup, watching the little mound of ice shrink till it consisted
only of a few thin chips. “And it’s longer, rougher and more dangerous, isn’t
it?”
“Actually, it’s about a day shorter,” Drogba said. He shrugged. “The rest is
true enough, but if I stick to my best camels and drivers—which I will gladly
do for you, my best client—and your men are as disciplined as they usually are,
it should be fine. The only annoyances will be the merchants.”
“I can handle the merchants. Speaking of which, if this route is shorter, then
why does nobody use it? He might complain about everything from the sand to the
fleas, but anything that gets the goods to the marketplace faster tends to find
favor in the merchant’s eye,” Luís asked. “Nine days instead of ten to them is
a godsend worth dedicating a Mass to.”
Drogba took a drink with elaborate nonchalance. His foot scuffed a bit at the
floor, moving part of the rug so the corner was crooked.
“It’s through the desert, isn’t it?” When the other man nodded, Luís exhaled
irritably and looked towards the ceiling. If ever he could have used his own
godsend—but no, this was the earthly realm and he had long since learned not to
rely on anything but his own resources. “And it’s faster?”
“It is! I’d show you the map because I know you prefer that, but it’s all in
these old traders’ heads right now,” Drogba said, tapping his own. “But I’ve
got Kolo trying to get it down on paper and he should have something in a few
days.”
“I would hope so, because I don’t go into anything I don’t know the way out
of,” Luís sharply replied. He stared into his goblet. The ice had all vanished
into the fruit juices now, with the only sign that it’d ever been there a thin
clear layer lying on top of the bright purple juice. “Come by with your map
when you’ve got it, and I’ll see if the savings in time and money are worth
it—Didi. Did you hear anything about why the sultan’s tightening up?”
Shrugging, Drogba downed the last of his drink in one toss of his head. He set
the empty goblet on a shelf before pulling his robes loosely around himself,
draping the folds so his hands would be covered from the brutal afternoon sun.
“Ah, but I’m a mere tradesman. What do I know about the workings behind the
palace walls?”
Luís rolled his eyes. “My earlier offer still stands, in gratitude for your
promptness in bringing this problem to my attention.”
Another amused smile came and went over Drogba’s face. “My sincere thanks and
acceptance, but really, I know nothing right now. All I know is that every
driver in the city is asking their god to intercede and soften the sultan’s
hard heart.”
He left Luís to mull over that charming little comment till a servant coughed
and shuffled in to retrieve Drogba’s empty goblet. Then Luís roused and, with a
few more choice curses, went to send off messages to the merchants in his
caravan. The more prominent of them had already heard some form of the news and
had fired off their own messages, and in a few cases the couriers comically
crossed paths in the streets. Or so Luís heard, since for the rest of the day
and well into the night he was busy at home, trying to determine independently
if Drogba’s proposal was feasible.
It did seem to be, but the route was difficult and prone to raids. But the
caravan had been in planning for months now and it was too late to call it off,
and Luís would be damned to the Muslim hell before he wasted a fortune on
resubmitting all the damn documents and accompanying bribes one needed to do
business nowadays.
Right then he recollected Zinedine’s request and paused in the middle of the
hall; the scribe who had been trailing after him was a little slow in adapting
and crashed up against Luís’ arm. Luís steadied the boy, absently waved away
the apologies, and told him to finish up the last letter and go to bed, they’d
do the rest in the morning. Then he retreated to his private chambers.
Sometime during the day, the chest Zinedine had promised had arrived separately
and was now sitting in the center of Luís’ private receiving room, a throwback
of iron bands and heavy teak wood lacking any ornamentation. One corner caught
Luís’ eye and he bent down, putting his finger to the tiny, freshly drilled
hole there: Henrik’s doing, a simple check to see if the chest really contained
what it was supposed it. Luís grinned and got back up. He went into the other
room where he kicked off his slippers and set his sword against the wall before
walking to the bath.
* * *
After wiping his hands dry, Luís carefully unlocked all the padlocks on the
chest. He stepped back, dropping the keys on a divan, and picked up his sword.
A bit of wet hair flopped into his eyes and he pushed it back before teasing
the tip of the sword in between the lid and the bottom part of the chest. A
flick of the wrist and the chest was open.
The gold coins sparkled blindingly so he blinked furiously, his eyes needing a
moment to accustom themselves. Then he carefully prodded at the mass with his
sword, stirring it thoroughly about till he was certain no unpleasant surprises
were waiting for him. It wasn’t so much that he distrusted Zinedine so much as
that he knew the man’s enthusiasm for antiques was only matched by Zizou’s
strange obliviousness to their various contexts. Not everything old was good,
either back when it was new or now.
The coinage certainly bore out Luís’ point when he stooped and looked at a
fallen one more closely. He snorted, then gave up and laughed—only Zinedine
would give him a chest of Imperial Roman gold as a sweetener. As if he could
use any of it without recoining the lot into dinars first, and then good luck
on finding a goldsmith all of Egypt who’d be able to keep their mouth shut
about it.
But that was a difficulty with which Luís could find ways of dealing. He got
back up and flipped his hand on the hilt so he could stab more easily, and then
did so, driving the sword down till he felt the tip catch in something softer
than metal. Then he patiently levered the object up till it fell to the ground
in a splash of spinning gold coins.
Whatever it was, it was wrapped in rags as Zinedine had said. The package was
roughly rectangular and small, about the size of a lady’s psalter, but heavy in
Luís’ hand. He carefully set it on the ground before he slit the rags and
pulled them away.
It was a book. Old, leather binding brittle and actually scorched in some
places. The pages were of vellum and not of paper, which explained the weight.
They crackled alarmingly no matter how gently Luís touched them, but the close-
written Greek script that filled their expanses was still readable. Very
readable.
Luís shut the book after he’d puzzled out the first few pages, then put his
hand on top of it and took a deep breath. Then again. And then he closed his
eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his other hand. “Good God, Zizou.
If you really want me to get killed, you could just ask me to spar with you.”
That’d be another message he’d have to send, but in the morning. It’d raise too
much suspicion if he sent a courier to beat on Zinedine’s door in the middle of
the night.
He tried to rewrap the book in the rags, but they were so old they fell to
pieces in his hands so instead Luís bundled it into an old shirt. Then he went
into the sleeping chamber and lifted up the false floorboard beneath his bed,
where he kept the few things he’d brought with him from Europe, and slid the
book into the little space. After he’d fitted the board back in place, he went
and scooped all the coins back into the chest and locked it.
Luís readied himself for bed, then propped his sword against the wall, hilt-up.
He got carefully down on his knees before it, grimacing as a few of his joints
creaked a reminder of his age, and bent his head over his folded hands. His
lips moved silently for a few minutes. Then he got up and got into bed.
* * *
The next day, he had part of the stables blocked off and the chest hauled out
to there, where he and Henrik rigged up a makeshift smelting oven. He didn’t
have the time, tools or skills to recoin the damn lot, but ingots he could do,
and ingots were transportable without being quite as suspicious.
“Zinedine sent a man back to say he’d be calling on you this evening,” Henrik
said, dropping onto a sack of coal. He wiped his hands over his face, then
flipped the sweat off his fingers.
“Oh.” Luís dumped another shovel of coal into the firepit before stepping back
himself. He tossed the shovel against the nearest wall, then took down a water-
jar from the shelves by the door and drank deeply from it.
The door swung out a bit, and then more. A few moments later, Zlatan looked in.
He saw Henrik right away and started, and then turned to see Luís and started
again. The second time didn’t seem to be in such pleasant surprise.
“I brought the coal,” he said, stepping inside. He was barely bent over, though
the two bags he let slide off his back were nearly as big as a doubled-up man.
Luís poked at one with his foot, then passed the water-jar off to Zlatan and
grabbed the bag’s top. He’d begun to haul it further from the firepit when he
noticed the boy was putting the jar back on the shelf. “Have a sip. It’s why I
gave it to you.”
Henrik stirred, rolling off the sacks onto his feet so he was squatting near
the edge of the firepit. He reached out and picked up one of the large melting
crucibles they’d be using, then stretched it over the pit to time how long it
took for the iron to heat up.
It was in Zlatan’s face to refuse, but in the end the boy drank. At first
stiffly, but then loud and greedy, splashing a bit on the dirt. He pulled the
jar away from his mouth and looked at the muddy clumps before silently putting
the jar back. Then he half-turned towards the door, dancing a bit on his toes.
“You can speak Swedish here, to Henke and me. Though I swear on the Cross, if
you two start on the salted fish I’m leaving,” Luís said. He walked over to the
chest and—over the sound of Henrik’s slow hissed breath—pulled up the lid.
After grabbing a handful of the coins, he tossed one over his shoulder.
It didn’t fall to the ground. When Luís turned around, Zlatan was spinning the
coin between his forefingers, head bent. Then the boy looked up and flicked it
back, and Luís promptly slapped it to him again. This time he caught it after a
quick scramble and pinched it between finger and thumb, looking angry.
“Do you know what’s on that?” Luís walked around the firepit and dropped the
rest of the handful beside Henrik. The other man glanced up, cool and curious,
before picking out a coin and expertly tossing it into the now red-hot
crucible.
Zlatan shrugged, but his thumb absently rubbed over the coin’s surface. “Some
man’s head, and two people holding shields on the back.”
“What about the words?” Luís asked. He watched Zlatan abort his glance
downwards. “Can you read them?”
“It’s not Arabic. That’s all you’re supposed to learn,” Zlatan said. He snapped
his forefinger so the coin suddenly sliced through the air to the small heap
next to Henrik.
“So no. What else can you speak? They tell me you know the Circassians’ native
tongue.” The crucible swung over so Luís could see the little glistening puddle
in the bottom. He nodded and Henrik drew in the long handle, then began to fill
the cup up with the coins.
Zlatan edged closer to the door, unconsciously angling himself so the cool
breeze coming through it would blow over him. He seemed to be fighting off
another flare of irritation, and at any rate didn’t appear to be willing to
answer soon, so Luís tapped Henrik on the shoulder before walking out. He
waited for Zlatan to follow, then pushed the door as far as he could without
actually shutting it, so Henrik wouldn’t suffocate.
“Nobody speaks that here so why would you want to know? You’re not going there,
are you?” Zlatan asked, voice pure hostility.
“Well, if I ever do, I know not to ask if you want to come.” Luís poked around
till he found a torn saddlecloth dumped in a corner to be made into rags. He
used it to mop his face and back, and then squeezed his hair through it. “I’m
just curious. Henke says you really are from Sweden.”
That muscle in Zlatan’s jaw tightened again, and his gaze could have lit a fire
between his feet. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But you had him check.”
Luís lowered the cloth and looked the boy over very carefully. Then he sighed
and, after tossing the cloth down, reached out and grabbed a double handful of
Zlatan’s shirt. He ignored the tensing and yanked and twisted till the tails
were out, then let go. “How long have you been here? You should know better
than to dress like that, and to refuse water. You’ll roast that way.”
“It was cold last night,” Zlatan stubbornly said, pulling at his shirt. He
twitched and jerked at it till it was arranged to some standard of satisfaction
that wasn’t immediately apparent to Luís, since when he was done it looked as
mussed as it had before.
“So why didn’t you ask Henrik for an extra blanket? He would’ve gotten you one,
and not needed to ask me first.” The air around them was beginning to smell
distinctly smoky and when Luís looked, black tendrils were curling around the
door. He immediately pulled it open and checked to see if Henrik was all
right—the man waved at him—before standing back and pondering the problem.
The ventilation wasn’t good enough with the door shut, but leaving it open
wasn’t an option. Not with all that gold to be melted, and everybody and their
brother wandering in and out of the stables. So…Luís gazed around and his eyes
fell on the saddlecloth again. He picked it up and shook it out: it was of a
size to cover the whole doorway, but the weave was too close to let out the
smoke.
“You could—” Zlatan paused when Luís looked at him “—you could cut slits in
it.”
“I could…good idea.” It only took a moment to tack the cloth to the lintel and
take a dagger to it, and it did seem to work well enough. Of course it wasn’t
solid wood and Luís would have to remind himself not to get caught up in
anything so he could keep an eye on it, but it’d do.
Something creaked: a wall beneath Zlatan as he gingerly leaned on it. He
scratched at his head, pushing the hair back from his face. “That part of the
return gift for me?”
“It’s a lot for just you, isn’t it? Unless you’re not telling me about some
special skill of yours,” Luís said, blinking.
“Never mind. I…you didn’t seem to mind if I saw it, is all.” Zlatan started
pushing at his flushed cheeks, not seeming to realize that that only encouraged
it to spread. “I’ve been here long enough to know about gift-giving.”
It would appear so, given his prickly sense of caution and his dislike of
casual touches. After he’d seen Zinedine, Luís really needed to sit down with
Henrik and ask him about last night. “It’s a good thing to know, if you want to
survive. So’s choosing your accusations carefully, since I didn’t ask Henrik to
talk to you.”
The red in Zlatan’s face abruptly drained away. He edged backwards so his heels
knocked up against the wall, causing him to glance down. And he never quite
lifted his head back up, though his shoulders went back as if he were bracing
himself.
“I should’ve known, though. He loves talking about his country and I’ve heard
it all a thousand times over,” Luís snorted. He hunted about till he found
where he’d left his undershirt and robes, then threw them on. “He’s thrilled to
have a new conversation partner, I’d wager.”
“Talking about it makes you miss it less.” Then Zlatan shut his mouth, looking
sorry he’d said that. He relaxed so he didn’t resemble so much a man on the
scaffold, but returned to rubbing awkwardly at his cheeks and nose. “I—my
father was a mercenary. He’d fought with some Circassians and he taught me how
to speak a few of their tongues. But he was from Bosnia and that’s why they
probably told you I’m terrible and all that. They don’t like each other much
back there.”
Luís didn’t know the exact explanation, but from the tone and the stance of the
boy, he could guess it was probably rooted in war. “And your attitude doesn’t
have anything to do with it at all, then?”
“What attitude?” Zlatan retorted. His pupils widened, contracted, and then
widened again as he pressed himself against the wall again. His hands flattened
out over the wood before twisting to curl into fists.
“The only reason I’d hit you,” Luís said after a moment, “Is if I think death
is coming. And I’m a soldier too, and old enough to know better than to need to
hit a man more than once. I don’t see the point in whips.”
Zlatan didn’t calm, but instead seemed to draw himself inwards, wrapping
everything up in a hard, resigned coldness. “But I’m still a slave.”
“In Cairo, yes. And we are in Cairo.” A servant’s hail drifted from around the
corner and Luís looked towards it, then stepped forward. He gestured back
towards the saddlecloth curtain. “Do you want to help Henrik? It’s a long job
and a hot day.”
“Good work for someone like me, then.” It wasn’t quite a question, nor a
statement.
“Better work than trying to talk a Venetian merchant into paying his bill in
full,” Luís said. “Tell Henke I’ll be back with lunch.”
* * *
The merchants bitched like the whores they were, but they weren’t any more
interested in meeting the hiked tolls than Luís was and eventually they
signaled a willingness to follow his lead. Drogba showed up a bit earlier than
he’d claimed he could and proved with maps this time that his idea was
feasible, which was both reassuring and worrying. No matter who was at war with
who in the sultan’s court, people always needed to travel and so it took a good
deal to perturb the camel-drivers. The fact that he wanted to get out of Cairo
as soon as possible was more than a little disturbing, but he continued to
insist that he didn’t know and hadn’t heard of anything out of the ordinary.
At least when Luís checked in with the midday meal, the melting of the gold
seemed to be going well. His knock on the jamb cut off a lively Swedish chatter
that started up again the moment he’d handed the food off to Zlatan, so it
seemed those two were rapidly becoming friendly. Then again, Henrik could get
along with a lion and then coolly stab it in the back while it was sleeping, so
Luís still needed to have that talk with him.
But as soon as Zinedine’s hawk profile appeared in the doorway, Luís put that
all out of his mind and greeted his old friend. “What the hell are you doing to
me? If the idea is for me to be arrested, I could just go kiss the sultan’s
chief wife the next time I’m invited to court.”
Zinedine paused on the threshold. “You looked at it.”
“Of course I looked at it. You made such a production of asking me to take it
along that I would’ve felt utterly disgusted with myself if I hadn’t looked,”
Luís snapped. He began to say more, but his manners restrained him and in the
end he threw up his hands and stalked back into the room. “And now I know what
it is, damn you.”
The other man did follow after shutting the door, so he wasn’t nearly as
surprised as he made out. “Luís--Luís, stop walking. Stop—stop and let me talk,
would you?”
“About what? It’s a goddamn rutter, so it more or less explains itself.” Luís
did stop, and kicked his slippers behind him before he collapsed on the couch.
Then he twisted about to see where they’d landed and saw them lying in front of
a stone-faced Zinedine, as if they’d bounced off the man’s shins. He could only
hope. “Is it real?”
Eyes on the slippers, Zinedine carefully stepped over them and over to the
divan. He sat down, throwing out his robes as he did to keep the folds from
being trapped beneath him. “As far as I can tell, it’s an accurate copy of a
real book from the lost Library of Alexandria, yes. A record of one Phoenician
ship’s extensive travels, and it does sound like the ship reached India. More
than that I can’t determine for myself. I’d need to sail the route myself, or
ask someone more familiar with Asia.”
“You’d need more than that,” Luís muttered. “You’d have to go all the way to my
country to find a captain crazy enough—Zizou, that’s a rutter that tells you
how to sail around Africa to India. If it’s true…if it’s true…”
“If it’s true then the sultan will go to any lengths to ensure it doesn’t leave
the country. The route would kill the overland trade and that’s what finances
the sultanate.” Zinedine interlaced his fingers over his lap. Not a drop of
sweat was visible on him, but that hardly meant anything. His nerves were never
very apparent till just before blood was shed. “Are you going to take it?”
On the other hand, the lack of any blood on the floor now did mean he wasn’t
actually that surprised, and that in turn was, if Luís was honest with himself,
not terribly startling either. “Zizou, why would you want to make the sultanate
collapse? I know you’re not fond of Kait Bey, but there have to be easier ways
to get rid of him. I could introduce you to a few fellows from Sicily…”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not asking you to take it out of the country, Luís.
I just want you to take it to Alexandria, and to not let anyone else know about
it till I wish it,” Zinedine said. He turned to look at Luís, then put his hand
on Luís’ knee. “There are experts there who can tell me more about the book’s
genuineness. I don’t mean to cause any trouble for either of us. And frankly, I
have to wonder that that’s the first thought that springs into your mind.”
“Because I’ve gone to war with you.” Luís sighed and pushed the hand off its
knee. Then he levered himself up, only to glance down as Zinedine’s fingers
cupped over his knee again. The corner of his mouth tugged up. “You know, it’d
be worth a fortune to the Venetians. You’re taking a hell of a chance letting
me leave the city with it.”
One of Zinedine’s fingers crooked around to tickle the backside of Luís’ knee,
while his thumb slid down into the slight hollow on the inside, rubbing in a
slow circle. “Well, I’ve gone to war with you.”
The other half of the smile gradually insinuated itself onto Luís’ face; he
could see the gleam of his teeth reflected in the other man’s eyes. And very
slowly, an echo of it tugged at Zinedine’s lips. He lifted his chin a little,
lashes lowered, and then leaned forward.
Luís hated to do it, but he got up a hand between them and pushed at Zinedine’s
chest so the other man stopped barely a hair’s-breadth away. “I need to go back
to organizing the caravan. Unless you’re going to be any help with these new
tolls?”
“I just heard about them myself. Rumor is the sultan’s raising forces for a new
offensive against the Turks and he’s in no mood to be generous,” Zinedine
murmured. “My apologies, but I need that extra money as well if I’m to hire
decent ships.”
“Well, then. I’ll go attend to my business in that case.” Luís turned to brush
his lips over the other man’s cheek before hastily getting up. He kicked his
feet into his slippers before pivoting on his heel to cast an inquiring look
Zinedine’s way.
Zinedine was still sitting on the divan and obviously more than a little
displeased with the sudden change, but he got up with grace enough. “If you
took as much care during the rest of the year…”
“I’d be a bore and you’d never have me over. Speaking of, are you sure that
Alexandria—”
“Alexandria’s out of the question,” Zinedine said sternly, with a faint touch
of reprimand.
If he’d really wanted another time before they both left Cairo, he could’ve
presented Luís with a less complicated favor. But Luís carefully didn’t mention
it and instead ushered the other man out before going off in an isolated corner
and indulging in a little blasphemy. Ah, well, business first. It wasn’t
pleasure if it stood the danger of being interrupted.
* * *
The ingots were all formed and cooled, ready to be coated in a thin layer of
tin later. For now they’d been restacked in the chest and locked up and would
spend another night in Luís’ chambers…if he could find someone to take up the
other end. The firepit was out, the smelting tools were gone and the place was
as clean as it’d been this morning, so it appeared that Henrik hadn’t run into
any problems. Except for the fact that he was not actually here.
Luís stood in the room and tried not to give in to his frayed temper, but he
was only human, and…and he cocked his head, listening intently. Then he walked
out and through the nearest door, following the scrabbling noises. He went
around the corner and looked up to where there was a hatch to the loft that
spanned part of the stable, which was open with a ladder leaning beneath it.
The occasional flurry of hay came flying out of it, and the ground around the
ladder was covered in broken stalks.
“Got it!” Zlatan’s voice suddenly crowed. “Damn thing was driving me crazy.”
“What was?” Luís called up.
It was silent for a moment. Then Henrik’s head popped out the hatch. “A crane
got in and was flapping around, but Zlatan caught it. Did you want to get the
chest back to your room now?”
“It’d be a good time, yes.” Luís stepped forward and braced the ladder while
Henrik swung onto it and quickly descended. “I think we’ll just cart it all out
and do the tin-coating on the dunes early in the morning. There’s going to be
too many people in and out of the house—Drogba’s bringing in some new drivers
for this trip and I’ve got to meet them all. Zlatan? Are you coming down?”
Zlatan appeared in the hatch, crouched with his head bent so he fit in the
frame. His hands were full with something, presumably the crane, wrapped up in
his shirt so he should’ve been watching his balance instead of leaning so
dangerously out to look at Luís. He was a bit flushed and a light sparkle
lingered in his eyes, but his face was already shuttering. “Wait a moment.”
Then he threw his arms out and at the same time seemed to fall off the
edge—Luís hissed and yanked Henrik off the ladder, breath catching in his
throat—but then Zlatan was hanging off a rung, his shirt dangling from his hand
as the bird flapped frantically away into the darkening sky. The boy watched
it, smiling a little, before abruptly sliding down the ladder at breakneck
speed. Luís barely let go before Zlatan would’ve crashed into him.
Henrik flinched and dropped his head, pulling at his nose. “He was a lot of
help with the casting. He’s got a light touch,” he muttered.
“I can imagine,” Luís dryly replied. The crane was now little more than a white
speck on the horizon. “You could’ve saved that. They’re not bad to eat, you
know.”
He aimed that more towards Zlatan, who now that he was on the ground had
resumed his usual rigid slouch. Zlatan did lift his head a little when
addressed, but though he now unconsciously drifted more towards Henrik, he
didn’t seem any more inclined to begin a conversation.
“I never liked them that much. Too stringy—ssss.” Grimacing, Henrik put a hand
to the spot in his back he’d just tweaked. He pressed at it, then braced his
other hand against the stable wall and tried to stretch it out. “Sorry, I need
a minute. Then we can go get the chest.”
Luís shrugged, looking at the sky. “They’ll call for evening prayers in a
moment and then everyone should be gone. Is that enough time?”
“…could do it,” Zlatan muttered, voice muffled because he was pulling his shirt
over his head. He jerked it down, flicking a look at Luís as he left the tails
untucked, and then turned towards Henrik. After watching Henrik with head
tipped, he reached out and started prodding the other man’s back, much to
Henrik’s audible relief. “I wasn’t sitting as much. My back’s fine.”
“Well, all right. Henke, you didn’t tear something, did you?” Luís off-handedly
replied. He didn’t look over at Zlatan, but instead grabbed the ladder and used
its top to knock the hatch shut. Then he swung it up and back onto its hooks on
the wall. “I wanted you to go weapons-shopping tomorrow, but I want you fit for
the caravan more.”
Henrik pushed off the wall with a long sigh and an amused look for Luís that
was carefully hidden by the time he turned to Zlatan, thanking him for the
helping. He tossed the chest keys to Luís. “No, I’m fine. I’m just going to go
sit in the sauna for a few hours. Everything’s cramping.”
He went off just as the muezzins began to sing from the mosque towers, and Luís
and Zlatan went back into the stable to get the chest. Though the boy was tall,
he certainly hadn’t reached his full strength yet and his back suffered a good
bit more from the hauling than he seemed to care to let Luís know about. It was
difficult, but Luís had had enough practice with Zinedine to manage a straight
face in front of all the muffled wheezing breaths and stuttered steps.
It was a little easier once they’d made it to Luís’ chambers, as Zlatan was
rather transparently distracted by the frescos and mosaics on the walls. Once
or twice he nearly dropped his end on his feet and Luís had to resort to
clearing his throat to get the boy’s attention. It might prick Zlatan’s pride,
but if he’d ever had a broken bone reset, he would know to be grateful for the
warning.
“Stop. Here,” Luís said. They lowered the chest to the floor, then stepped away
at nearly the same time. Luís rotated his wrists a few times, trying to loosen
the strained muscles before they set up into soreness.
Zlatan absently did likewise, rubbing circles around his wrists, but he was
still preoccupied with the walls. One mosaic in particular had caught his eye:
a fragment from a Byzantine villa that Luís, with the help of a very clever
young Spaniard, had managed to transfer to his house. It showed half a cross in
the sky, and a bareheaded man kneeling with his hands out before him, his sword
stretched over his palms, and likely Zlatan had never seen anything like it
since the Saracens disapproved of portraying human figures.
“One of the old Imperial Roman Emperors was standing in front of him to take
the surrender. I’d like to say that it would be Constantine because of the
cross, but I don’t really know,” Luís said. He got down beside the chest and
rechecked the locks, more to look like he wasn’t really concerned with what
Zlatan was doing than because Henrik would’ve been that careless.
“Who’s Constantine?” The floorboards creaked as Zlatan moved one of his feet.
He stopped, and then started towards the mosaic again, much more quietly, when
Luís didn’t look up. “What did he do?”
Luís flipped the keys in his hand, and then again so they all were neatly
cradled in his palm. Then he stood up and slipped them into a pocket. “He saved
the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, what you used to call Byzantium, and
spread the Church’s teachings across Europe, and built the great city of
Constantinople. One of the great generals of history.”
“Who’s the man on his knees?” Zlatan asked. When Luís finally turned around,
the boy was right up against the mosaic and carefully brushing his fingers over
the slate chips that made up the man’s sword.
“I don’t know that either. There was a good deal lost when Byzantium fell.”
Luís crossed the room and poured himself some water from a jar, then drained it
in one swallow. He left the water-jar on a small table before he came up behind
Zlatan’s left shoulder. “I suppose if I went to Constantinople I might still be
able to find someone who could tell me, but I don’t know if that’d be an
improvement. Sometimes it’s better not to be known.”
Zlatan favored him with a glance of reluctant interest. “Especially if you
lost, right?”
“That depends. For some people winning’s even harder. Me, I’m just happy to
stay between the beggars and the heroes, with a nice house and a stable of good
horses,” Luís said. He stepped back and walked around the boy to trace out the
cross with his hand. Some of those pieces had real gold dust mixed into the
glass, and they left a shining residue on his thumb. “I could’ve had the whole
scene, but it was too big to fit in the cart, so my friend and I split it. I
wasn’t so happy to get this half, but now I think it was the better one.
Anyway, mosaics are pretty enough, but…”
He shrugged, and Zlatan twisted a little to look at him. The boy still had his
hand on the wall and his fingers were curling as if he wanted to pull the sword
out of the picture. “It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
Better even than the ceilings in the…well, the mosque they took us to. Back
when I was…when they let me into an age-group.”
From challenging to angry embarrassment in less time it took to draw breath. Of
course he was of age for it, and of course that wasn’t entirely why Luís was
trying very hard to suppress his amusement. “How long’s it been?”
Zlatan’s gaze sharpened a little. “A year or so since they gave up on me. You
didn’t talk to Henke—he asked that, too, and wanted to know how much weapons-
training I’d had.”
“He would. He’s been a very good sergeant to me for the past five years,” Luís
said, grinning. Maybe that was why Henrik seemed so inclined towards the lanky
viper already. “I’m surprised they only gave up on you. It’s not often they let
someone get that far and then toss them out. They’re very protective of their
military secrets, the Mamelukes.”
Something slid through Zlatan’s eyes, dark and hot like boiling pitch spilled
onto the sand. His lip curled, and then he turned back to the mosaic. He
flattened his hand against the wall so if it had been real, the sword would
have slivered his palm. “Well, I’m a great fuck.”
Luís blinked, his own hand still on the wall. The glass chips changed from
chilly to tepid against his fingers, unpleasantly smooth like the skin of a
snake. He lowered his arm, and then, when he sensed a slight movement from the
boy, pointedly moved away.
“And good at fucking, too,” Zlatan added, his Northern drawl curling lazily
around the words. He flapped a hand at his head. “You know, because I’m so
tall, and I don’t know, these fat rich nobles, they get so bored they’ll even
play around with being on their backs. You’d be surprised who likes it that
way, as long as it’s somebody they can beat afterward who does it—I thought
your friend, Zizou—”
“Zidane’s not like that, believe me.” The first shock had been expertly
delivered, Luís had to admit, but when Zlatan had gone on and elaborated he’d
overdone it and given Luís time to catch his breath. And so now he spun on a
heel till his back touched the wall, then leaned against that. His hands he
steepled in front of him, looking over them to Zlatan.
Zlatan stood as if he were strung up by thin wires, and those pulled taut by
some puppeteer standing in the ceiling. He had squeezed his hand around his
wrist so hard that the flesh beneath his fingers had gone from red to white,
and his chin was down but his eyes up. He bounced on the balls of his feet a
few times, chewing on his lip, before he finally jerked a foot forward.
“It definitely was fucking and no seduction,” Luís said abruptly. He pressed
the tips of his fingers to his mouth, then pulled them down, still with palms
laid together. “Go get a drink of water, Zlatan. The jar’s over there.”
The boy just stared at him, not moving.
Luís closed his eyes and put his hands to his mouth again, then unfolded them
and pressed his fingers up his face and into his hair. “Go drink. Zizou doesn’t
give away slaves for that, and I don’t take them for it either. If I want
company, I can win its consent in my bed.”
“With what?” Zlatan asked, almost rasping the words.
“Flowers, pretty clothes. A good horse. Bringing them the keys to a city
they’ve always wanted works well, too.” With a look of amusement that wasn’t
quite truth, Luís returned to gazing at the mosaic. A bit of a Latin
inscription remained at the bottom and he outlined the letters with a finger as
hesitant footsteps made their way over to the table, as a soft slurping came
back to him. “And this a second-rate piece of work when it was whole…if you
want to see beautiful, go to Milan. The cathedral there is like looking at
God’s relief at having a rest for once.”
The sucking noises stopped, and after a moment there came the sound of the
water-jar being set back on the shelf. “Where’s Milan?” Zlatan said, quiet but
much less strained.
Luís looked up, grinning. Then he spun around and strode across the room to the
row of shelves that lined the far wall. He had a small library, but getting up
in the middle of the night and walking there was too much of an annoyance for
someone who’d abused his knees as much as Luís had, so these shelves held the
books he consulted most often. He ran his fingers along their bindings till he
came to the one he wanted, then pulled it down.
By then Zlatan’s curiosity had urged him as far as a yard or so from Luís’
right side. He stiffened a bit when Luís turned, but stood his ground. And when
Luís flipped open the book, Zlatan went so far as to crane his head to try and
see the pages.
The book was as long as Luís’ forearm and damned heavy, so it seemed only
natural to put it on the ground. And if that helped cover the space between the
two of them, well, then that saved Luís the trouble of forcing down the
recurring temptation he had to hit Zlatan and then chuck him under the chin,
like a few young brats Luís was vividly remembering now. “It’s in northern
Italy, up by Switzerland. The Romans called it Mediolanum…”
He paged to the map bundled into the book, then carefully unfolded it. Zlatan
had crouched down as well and now he reached out to help Luís smooth the map’s
folds, though he made sure to avoid having their hands touched. His forefinger
circled back, then suddenly arrowed in on a tiny black spot. “There?”
Luís didn’t answer right away, and that warned Zlatan so he snatched back his
hand and stared straight down between his knees, lips thinning. His eyes
flicked up, met Luís’ gaze and then dropped again.
“Where did you learn then, if not with your age-group?” Luís quietly asked. “I
know they don’t teach Latin in those, but you don’t seem to look to them for
all your lessons.”
“I—” Zlatan bit his lip and took a deep breath, shoulders pulling back, before
he looked up “—the place before your friend’s. It wasn’t very big. I did a lot
of work in the same courtyard they used for teaching the master’s kids. Little
shits were terrible, but the tutor wasn’t bad.”
Luís nodded and refolded the map, running a thumbnail along the creases so the
paper would bend properly. Then he closed the book and turned it so he could
flip open the cover to the front. “Just Latin?”
“Greek first. Latin later, because he had a book of it and I asked what it was.
I was just wondering, because the letters looked different,” Zlatan said. He
calmed a little, his shoulders and arms losing their tension. Then he relaxed
too suddenly and shot Luís a grinning, humorless look. “He was nice. Too nice,
really—he got himself kicked out and me passed on when he walked in on the
master hitting me and acted like an idiot.”
That, Luís decided, was probably what had attracted Zinedine’s attention. Maybe
this tutor first of all, and then when he’d heard a story about a slave picking
up Latin and Greek, Zlatan. Debt settlement…Zinedine was choosy about what he
took as payment, and powerful enough to make that stick. The Swedish had only
been the sweetener. “So can you read this?”
Zlatan tensed again, eyes narrowing as he stared across the book. His head
lowered by slow degrees, and even then his gaze fell only when it would’ve done
him physical injury to keep looking at Luís. “Commentaries on…wars. I don’t
know what’s the word before it. And…Gai—us Ju—lius Cae—sar,” he muttered,
cautiously sounding out the words. “A name, right?”
“Another very good general. It’s the Gallic Wars, a record of a nine-year
campaign he conducted in Gaul—we call it France now. Less boasting than you’d
expect and a very good military manual, and good writing style to boot,” Luís
said. He flicked the cover shut, then pushed it over to Zlatan. “Read that. If
you can’t tell jokes I want to be able to talk to you about something.”
After a moment, Zlatan’s fingers lapped over the front cover. The book tilted
as he slid his thumbs beneath it, and then he levered his hand under it and
picked it up, eyebrows rising at little at the weight. “What, you haven’t
talked Henrik to death over it?”
“Henrik doesn’t know Latin, only Greek. He and I have been through a few
fights, but there’s only so much you can get from those. It’s better to learn
from other people’s wars, and then wage your own,” Luís told him as he stood.
He went over to the door and pushed it open, then moved out of the way. He
waited a few seconds before impatiently tapping his foot. “Come on. I want to
get to sleep now.”
Zlatan got up, book tucked under an arm, and slowly wandered over. He put up a
hand as he ducked through the doorway, then used the hold to pivot. “No one’s
supposed to know about that gold, right?”
“If I have anything to say about it.” Luís smiled, and though he did like the
boy, he didn’t bother pretending to be what he wasn’t. So Zlatan got the
warning and the kindness, and from the way his eyes flickered, comprehended
both.
He nodded, then swung the rest of the way into the hall. His pace faltered a
little, then sped up, and when he turned the corner, Luís just glimpsed Henrik
waiting there. Good man, Henrik Larsson.
* * *
For the next few days Luís didn’t see much of Zlatan and didn’t think much of
it, trusting to Henrik and the others to keep Zlatan out of trouble and out of
the way, and to know which was necessary at any given time. He kept his
household small and limited precisely to ensure that sort of efficiency, and
once it’d been established, he didn’t meddle with it.
He hardly had the time to, what with the thousand little niggles and issues
that invariably cropped up just before any caravan’s departure. No matter how
many of them Luís organized, he never managed to prevent or even foresee all of
them. Two of his best fighting-men injured in a brawl, Drogba suddenly needing
to scrape up the bail for some foolish but crucial relation of his who’d gotten
arrested, that whiny little bureaucrat Mido coming to reassure himself that
Luís wasn’t about to try circumventing the toll roads…it really was enough to
drive a man into a monastery, and never mind the profits.
The gold at least would be easy enough to handle, once Luís got it to
Alexandria and his favorite Italian banker. And he was making sure it would; it
was enough to double his current investments and bring retirement to within a
few years, and then he could tell Zinedine to give all his complicated errands
to somebody else. Speaking of which, Luís still felt distinctly uneasy about
having that rutter on his hands, but it wasn’t wise to get rid of it in a city
Zinedine could also claim as his own.
To be honest, Luís didn’t want to get rid of it at all. Those old pages
contained knowledge hard-won with blood and sweat, and pure human stubbornness
mixed with the unpredictable leaps of genius, and he respected that. Anyway he
privately thought that his countrymen would eventually push round Africa on
their own, and if it took them a few more years than they’d need with the
rutter to guide them, well, then they’d know better the worth of their
journeying and he’d have those few more years of caravanning to swell his
funds.
But he still wished he could guess at what Zinedine wanted to do with the damn
thing. Still-faced as the man could be, intrigue really wasn’t Zinedine’s
field.
“Luís?” Henrik came around the corner with an armful of quivers. Once he’d
reached Luís, he stood patiently so each one could be individually put into
sacks that’d later hang from the camels’ sides, within easy reach should they
be raided.
The other reason Luís liked using Drogba was that the man would fight. Most
camel-drivers cut their losses and fled at the first flash of a sword, but
Drogba seemed to relish the opportunity for combat, and while his men hadn’t
gone through formal drilling, they all seemed to have had some training via
inter-village raiding. They weren’t disciplined, but good enough so that Luís
could get away with hiring less men than other caravans, hence his more
attractive pricing. But this time he wasn’t taking any chances and he’d picked
up enough mercenaries to give each merchant a guard of five.
Of course, they all came with their own haphazard collection of gear, some of
it useful and some nothing more than superstition-justified junk. So he was
also rearming them out of his own pocket, and in the past few weeks he’d made
the weapons merchants of Cairo very, very happy. “Did you ever get a chance to
test Zlatan on the sword and bow?” he absently asked.
“Bow’s decent. I think it’s mostly lack of practice.” Henrik stowed the last
couple of quivers himself, then checked over the sacks to make sure the
fletchings on the arrows hadn’t tangled with each other. “He’s…he needs a
heavier sword than the ones we’ve got. He broke mine and his.”
Luís blinked, then dragged his mind away from cost calculations and began
paying a little more attention to the other man. “You really like him.”
“You do, too. He sneaks up to the roof so he’s got light to keep reading that
book you gave him instead of sleeping, and then complains that the jackals
barking keep him up,” Henrik said. His head was still bent over the sacks, but
that didn’t keep the flash of his teeth hidden. “What did you give him, anyway?
He won’t even let me see it.”
“Just Caesar, to improve his Latin. I don’t know if he’ll learn much about
fighting from it. He already seems to have a good handle on the principle of
striking first and getting under your enemy’s skin,” Luís dryly replied. He
dropped onto a bale of hay, then jerked forward as something nickered and
dragged a wet touch across the back of his neck. His horse stretched out its
neck and nuzzled him again, more pointedly, but he only reached up and patted
it on the muzzle. “No, you greedy bastard. Any more sugar lumps and you’ll get
too damn fat to ride. So he likes you, too?”
As he stepped back from the sacks, Henrik dusted off his hands and then his
robes. “It’s funny, you know…he got a little offended till I told him I’d
buried a very loved wife six years ago. Or maybe it was that he was nervous.
It’s hard to tell with him.”
“He’s seventeen years old. It’s exactly the same thing with them.” Luís gave
his horse a last rub on the nose before he sank down against the wall, letting
his heels dig furrows in the packed-earth floor. He closed his eyes, then
opened them. “Henke, I need to tell you something. Zinedine asked me for a
favor and it might make things difficult when we get to Alexandria. So you
might have to do a lot more watching in my place than usual.”
Henrik paused, then nodded. He didn’t inquire further and Luís didn’t feel
particularly guilty about not offering an explanation, and that was why Henrik
had been the trade of Luís’ life. “Luís? Is Zlatan coming?”
Closed eyes. Open eyes. Then Luís sat up and pushed himself onto his feet,
muttering a little as something popped rather painfully in his back. Retirement
was looking more and more welcome these days. “You really like him.”
“I think he’ll kill himself if he stays in Cairo.” A little embarrassed, Henrik
shrugged one shoulder. “Not do it himself, but it’d be very easy for him to get
somebody to do it for him. He misses Sweden, says leaving it was the worst
thing his father ever did.”
“Is that how he got down here?” Luís asked, pressing at his back.
“His mother died due to a miscarriage a few years after his birth—he blames
himself for it, saying he was too big and ripped something in her—and then his
father went where the wars were because he needed employment. They were on a
Genoan galley that shipwrecked on the Egyptian coast and they survived, only to
be picked up by the local amir’s patrol. His father was killed in the
confrontation.” Henrik pulled at his nose, then wiped the back of his hand over
it and his brow. He looked up at Luís. “I like him. He can tell a pretty good
joke, actually.”
Luís snorted, then gave in and let out a full laugh. Then, still shaking his
head, he walked past the other man and gave Henrik a clap on the shoulder by
way of farewell. “Finish up here, all right? I want to get moving first thing
tomorrow morning.”
* * *
The pebble went rattling away from Luís’ toes and Zlatan stiffened. Then he
snorted, merely pulling his knees up more so the book tilted towards his nose.
“Rome, Rome, Rome. That’s all he ever talks about. I think if I’m ever there,
I’ll have to hate the place just because he goes on about it so much.”
“Hate it all you want, but it’s still important,” Luís said. He walked normally
the last few yards across the roof, irritated and relieved not to have to hold
his clothes so tightly to keep them from rustling. “You look like you’re almost
finished.”
“Last night, actually.” Zlatan snapped it shut, then flipped the tome over to
run his fingers across the faded embossing. He was curled up against the side
of a little drying shed, well within the shadows but still able to get the
moonlight over his feet. “I was just looking at the maps again. You want it
back?”
He finally looked up, the dark and the pure amusement making his face far too
young to belong to the gangly body to which it was attached. His eyes went to
Luís’ before they dropped a little, and then a little more. They stopped there
and he sucked in a little breath, his feet jerking in a few hand-spans before
he went still.
Luís stood the sword on end and began to lean on the hilt, only to have the
scabbard shift alarmingly beneath his arm. He reached back and adjusted it,
then folded his hands over the ball pommel just as something collided with the
sword-tip, nearly making him lose his balance. But he hadn’t fought so long
without learning how to adjust quickly and so he managed to keep the blade from
slicing into the book.
“There,” Zlatan said, staring up. The word was curt and cold.
“It’s a pity Caesar never bothered with the Germans, like his uncle Marius did.
They have some remarkable things…good beer, forests thick enough to house the
old pagan gods still, swords like this.” The hilt chilled Luís’ finger when he
tapped it. “It’s so heavy you almost don’t need an edge on it. You could just
beat someone to death with it.”
Zlatan blinked once. The tight, coiled anger in his eyes didn’t change. “You
sneaked up on me. You’re pretty good.”
“I’m content with that,” Luís said, snorting, and he let go of the sword so it
fell over. If Zlatan hadn’t pulled back his hand, the pommel would’ve just
grazed his fingers. “Most people aren’t, but I think I’ve seen enough of the
world to not mourn what God didn’t give me. Try that and see if it’ll stand up
to your swing.”
He stepped back, then tossed the scabbard across Zlatan’s lap. Then he turned
around and started walking back, and had nearly made it to the trapdoor when
the boy finally called to him. Luís looked over his shoulder, then twisted all
the way around.
Zlatan had gotten to his feet and was holding the sword with both hands, feet
shoulder’s width apart and elbows properly relaxed. He made a few experimental
cuts, then let go with his left hand and with his right alone put it through a
whirlwind. The sword actually sang—not a whistle, as any metal strip could
make, but a clear high note like an angel’s voice—and Luís nearly took a step
back. But before he could, it suddenly stopped and the sword was pointing at
the book.
“This is yours. Don’t you want it?” Zlatan asked. He threw his words across the
space, but kept the sword before him instead of hanging easily from his side.
“Do you want it?” Luís scratched at his nose, then put his hands in front of
himself and stretched his arms till the joints popped. Then he sighed, letting
his arms swing back and forth a few times.
The boy jerked up his chin, glowering. Then he abruptly turned his head, teeth
flashing in a grim smile, and the rest of his body shortly followed so he
leaned against the wall almost profile-wise to Luís. He rudely flipped the
sword onto the ground between them so it clattered over the scabbard, a few
sparks flying off as metalwork hit metal.
“You know what I want? I want people to stop teasing me—I know I can’t do
anything, all right? You don’t need to test me and you don’t need to remind me
I’m not free and I can’t go home,” Zlatan snarled. His hands came up already
half-curled into fists, lingered a moment, and then slammed back into the wall.
It shook, rattling the drying poles inside, and sent a shower of dust up. “All
right?”
“As long as you’re in Cairo, all right. All right to being a slave and staying
here your whole life, which I don’t think will be much longer given your
temper. You don’t have a slave’s mind—you can’t stop yourself from trying to
find a way out, but right now you’re looking so hard you’re not seeing.” Luís
half-turned and took a sideways step to the trapdoor, then another so he was
standing on the very edge of it. He knelt down and put one hand on the top of
the ladder, then looked over his shoulder. “In Alexandria things are different.
I’m going there tomorrow. Now figure out whether you want to give my book back
to me or not. The sword’s not mine, so don’t worry about that.”
And then he grabbed the rung and lowered himself through the hole. He quickly
climbed down and once he’d reached the bottom, made sure to resettle the ladder
so it wouldn’t accidentally slide away. Then Luís went to his chambers.
His domestic servants had all been lent out to a friend’s household, with only
a skeleton staff left to maintain the place and they were all experienced
soldiers. Besides them and Henrik and Luís, no one else was left in the place
should Zlatan decide to vent his fury in a violent way. Though Luís seriously
doubted there would be any venting in the end.
* * *
The next morning when Zlatan showed up, sword strapped to his back and his few
things bundled up in a horsecloth, it was a study to see relief and delight and
sudden shocking comprehension chase each other over Henrik’s face. But then the
other man turned to Luís and Luís had to hastily wipe his own expression of any
traces of amusement.
He failed, to judge by the way Henrik slitted his eyes. “I thought you gave up
gambling.”
“When I go overland to Alexandria several times a year?” Luís mildly replied.
Then he grinned and rubbed his hand over the top of Henrik’s head. “Well, you
liked him, so I didn’t think the odds were too bad. You mind telling him how
this works while Drogba and I get those lard-filled merchants moving?”
The caravan managed to leave Cairo without incident, which Luís was tempted to
take as a good omen for the rest of the journey. But he wasn’t about to even
take a breath till they’d successfully found the first stop on Drogba’s
alternative route, and never mind their fortunes. They’d take care of
themselves, and in the meantime he’d stick to what he could do something about,
should anything go wrong. And it would.
“The outriders are telling me that we’re clear for the next day or so,” Luís
said to Drogba that night. They were a few yards away from the camp, squatting
over the rough map Drogba had drawn in the sandy ground. “They haven’t seen any
signs of camps.”
Drogba pressed one nostril shut with his finger and sneezed at the ground to
his left. He snorted a few times, yelled at Kolo to watch it with the she-
camels, and then turned back to Luís. “Good.”
“Really? If even the nomads don’t like this land, that worries me.” The last
word stuck a bit in Luís’ throat thanks to the bone-dry air and he took a
moment to clear his throat.
“Look, they found the first oasis, didn’t they? And it’s been a good
season—enough rain so the little ponds should be able to stand a caravan of
this size,” Drogba shrugged. His forefinger flicked out and touched a wavy
groove in the dirt, which was supposed to symbolize a series of dunes. “We’ll
have to watch for these. They’ve shifted into the way I want to go.”
Luís cleared his throat again, then resorted to hawking up some spit in order
to moisten his mouth. A parching breeze swirled over them so he pulled his
burnoose more closely around his face, squinting against the scratchy grains
the wind carried. “How old are these elders you asked again?”
“Ah, don’t get your feathers puffed at me. If a sandstorm blows up, I’m as dead
as you are. Besides, it doesn’t matter how old they are—what you wanted to ask
was when was the last time somebody came through here, and that was about a
year ago.” Drogba wriggled his fingers in a gesture of casual dismissal.
Somebody called to him and he looked up, but his second-in-command got to it
first and he returned to their discussion. “Dunes move, Figo. Nothing I can do
about it.”
“All right,” Luís muttered, rubbing his lip. His finger momentarily slipped
beneath it and he pushed it over his teeth, then caught his nail between his
incisors and chewed on it.
The other man looked at him silently for a moment before raising his eyebrows.
“Something going on? You look nervous.”
“Me? Never.” Luís slapped his hands on his knees and pushed down on them to
stand, then gave Drogba a courtesy hand up. He looked around the camp, absently
checking for any problems, while scuffing the map out of existence. “I looked
into the business with the new tolls and it’s probably just another levy to
keep the war against the Turks going. But still, there’s a few young lords
itching to get noticed so they’ll be sent out and can win some glory.”
“Well, I make sure we know where we’re going and you make sure nobody else
does, yes?” Drogba said, teeth flashing in a smile. The clap on the shoulder he
gave Luís as he strode off wasn’t any more genuine in its nonchalance, but at
least he seemed to have accepted that explanation for Luís’ nerves.
By the time Luís had worked his way back to his own bedroll, he’d managed to
reassure himself that the party could stand up to any serious raid and perhaps
even a small fighting force if they had enough time. If necessary—he preferred
to simply outpace them. Though that would see him in Alexandria too soon to
have determined exactly what he was going to do with that rutter. Luís always
kept his word, but he’d only said he’d take it with him and not mention it to
anyone.
He stepped over the last steaming, stinking pile of camel dung between him and
his sleeping spot and immediately went to check that that saddlebag hadn’t been
disturbed. The buckles looked fine and when Luís opened the flap, the packet of
food and extra shirt he’d stuffed on top appeared undisturbed, but nevertheless
he sank his fingers beneath them till he could feel the blunted corner of the
book. Then he redid the buckle and folded up the saddlebags, and was on the
point of laying his head on them when the most hideous squealing sound filled
the air.
Luís instinctively reached for his sword as he rolled over, only to see Zlatan
leaping back from something with a broad, vaguely ridiculous smile on his face.
Close as the boy skated to danger, he did seem to be capable of recognizing it
when he saw it…so Luís dropped his hand, then got back to his feet. He winced
as the squeal came again, louder and more indignant.
Zlatan jerked his head towards but didn’t look at Luís as he took another step
back. “I think she likes me.”
The camel he referred to lowered its head with almost snake-like cunning, its
thick black lips skinned back from the yellowed teeth. It snorted, the hot
moisture in its breath turning a few last rays of sun cloudy, and pawed
irritably at the ground. “You think so?” Luís said, looking at the strained
tether. “You ever been bitten by one of these bitches before?”
“No. I’m faster than that,” Zlatan scoffed, and proceeded to prove it by
darting low at the camel’s feet and then back before the camel could do more
than snap the tips off his ruffled hair. He hopped back a few more feet to sure
safety before he squatted down, smacking his prize against his arm: a somewhat
grainy piece of dried meat.
Luís didn’t quite understand till the boy started to lift one end towards his
mouth, and then he jerked forward. He probably said something as well since
Zlatan’s head went up like a threatened hound and the boy instantly scrambled
back, thrusting his curled toes at Luís. His grin vanished and he shoved the
meat deep into his lap, where it could be reached only by breaking through him
first. He stared up at Luís, his fear smeared thinly over that ever-simmering
rage.
“It’s only the first day. We’re not that badly off yet,” Luís finally said. He
glanced at the camel, which had settled down on its belly and was now nipping
at some idiot’s horse blanket. After kicking some dirt at it to make it stop,
Luís walked around Zlatan and went back to his sleeping site.
Henrik had shown up in the meantime and had built a tiny fire, over which he
had a pot of water heating. He moved aside for Luís to toss in a few pieces of
dried meat, sliced small with a dagger and free of camel spit and dirt, and
some spices, and then scooted back in to make sure every bit of wood was
consumed before he put more on. The smallest twig could be worth its weight in
gold out here.
Zlatan showed up when the meat had nearly finished boiled, that camel-chewed
strip still hanging from his hand. He sniffed rather loudly at the steam rising
from the pot and Henrik ladled him out some of the stew, which he all but
inhaled before passing his bowl back. Luís wandered over at that point and got
some himself, but he’d noticed his horse slightly favoring a hindleg and was
somewhat preoccupied. Once he’d found the cause—a pebble in the hoof—and dealt
with it, he came back to find Zlatan plying Henrik with questions about their
route and absently tossing ragged bits of his strip of meat to a few
adventurous jackals that had strayed near.
He looked up when Luís tossed a couple stones to drive them off. “Hey. I’m not
going to eat this now,” he said, holding up the meat.
“Doesn’t mean you need to encourage those pests.” Luís crouched down beside his
bedroll and shook off some of the dust that’d blown over it, then sat on it. He
pulled off his boots and tapped more dust from them, gave his toes a good few
minutes to stretch, and then put them back on.
“They’re pretty good at surviving for pests.” Zlatan balled up the remaining
piece of meat, then got onto his knees and flung it hard so it landed just
short of the jackals. One of them nosed cautiously forward, then quick as
lightning snapped up the meat and ran off, the other one chasing behind and
yipping anxiously.
With a grin to Luís, Zlatan settled back on the ground. Henrik rubbed at his
nose and grabbed the pot off the fire, muttering something about cleaning it
out as he walked off. Of course Zlatan noticed, but his annoyed look was aimed
at Luís instead of Henrik’s back.
Luís reached to his side without thinking, then pulled his hand back and turned
it over, looking at the palm. A thick red crease still ran across it from where
he’d gripped the reins. “I don’t like jackals because I’ve seen them eat a lot
of friends. That’s what they do here—in Europe it’s wolves and crows after a
battle, in Egypt it’s jackals and vultures. It’s disgusting.”
“At least it gets them off the field quicker,” Zlatan said, rolling onto his
feet. He spread out his bedroll, then flopped onto it. Something gleamed
briefly behind him before he sneaked the sword down beside him. “In that book
the Romans are always burning the bodies. That must have taken forever and
smelled horrible. Bet it looked better, though, if you think about that sort of
thing.”
“It’s the quickness that mattered more. You leave the bodies to rot and they
give off poisonous fumes—people get sick faster around a battlefield that
hasn’t been cleaned up. The water turns bad. The Romans didn’t make war to kill
people—they made war to get people so they could make money.” The moon when
Luís gazed up had just topped the trees, a big crescent like the one emblazoned
on the banners of the sultan. Its bright light would be a help for the
sentries. “Any land they took, they wanted back in use as soon as possible.”
Zlatan snorted, turning on his side. The whites of his eyes glowed faintly in
the deepening darkness. “Just another bunch of merchants with armies, then.”
“Merchants with armies who had a thousand-year empire, who could work miracles
we’ve forgotten. Maybe deep down they had the hearts of men with all their
flaws, but they saw farther than we do now,” Luís said. His thumb caught on
something and he glanced down to find that he’d jabbed it into a buckle-tongue
on the saddlebags. He licked the wound, then rubbed his thumb against his knee.
“And for a very, very long time they always won. You have all the titles you
want, come from the bluest, oldest blood in the world, but really, it means
nothing if you can’t win. Pit a snob against a good swordsman, and who gets to
brag afterward?”
The boy stared at him for a while, blinking now and then. He shifted to pillow
his head on his arm, and then he sat up again, hair flopping all awry. “It’s
all infantry in there—in the book. He talks about cavalry, but he only had four
hundred of them for so many battles.”
“A real army’s built on infantry,” Luís told him, grinning. As if it’d
overheard, his horse whinnied and Luís shushed it in Arabic before going on in
Swedish with Zlatan. “Oh, for a while cavalry was the best, and it’s still the
best out here, where the land’s full of mountains where it isn’t sand soft and
deep enough to swallow you whole, but I’ve seen even the Mamelukes beaten by
foot soldiers. You really want to make war, you have to know what to do with
those.”
Zlatan raised his eyebrows, looking incredulous. He twitched a little when
Henrik came back and started spreading his blankets, but otherwise kept his
attention fixed on Luís. “That’s not what I learned.”
“Well, nobody wants to teach about the times they lost, do they? Though those
are the best examples to learn from. Like Courtrai—it’s this little village in
Flanders…well, come over here so you can see what I’m drawing. This sorry
little pack of Flemish foot-sloggers absolutely crushed a couple hundred of the
best knights France had there about two hundred years ago…all right, Sweden is
here and Flanders is here…”
* * *
Four days into the journey, they had their first attempted raid. It wasn’t too
much, just a few bored Berbers spotting a merchant who’d wandered off during
the midday rest in search of more shade, but driving them off was still a
nasty, messy way of spending an hour during the hottest part of the day. And
then there was taking stock afterward and realizing that they’d just lost
whatever time they would have gained by taking this route.
“We can make it to the oasis—there’s a little village there, so it’ll have
buildings we can use if we need them. But then we’ve got to rest,” Drogba
muttered, hunched over something. He grunted and the young man squatting beside
him reached out, only for Drogba to snarl him into scooting back, wide-eyed.
Then Drogba grunted again, his elbows pushing back to point at the sky.
The noise ended in a sharp click of teeth and a loud blasting hiss of air as
the man’s nostrils flared. His arms jerked down, and then he sat back with a
sigh of relief. He propped himself up on one hand and grinned at Luís while the
other driver efficiently clipped off the head of the arrow piercing his leg,
then carefully pulled the shaft free of Drogba’s flesh.
“I got to get this wrapped up better than it’s getting now, and then repack the
camels. Some of them we have to—” Drogba paused as an animal’s pained howl was
suddenly cut short “—we’re killing because the legs are broken.”
“At least the stew will be decent tonight. I know you’re keeping the livers, so
don’t tell me you didn’t bring them when I ask for some this time.” Luís paused
to wipe off a dribble of blood from his own forehead, then went on to see to
the others.
Casualties among the men weren’t too bad: none of the drivers were so badly
injured they couldn’t ride, one dead servant and several mercenaries who’d have
interesting scars to show off in Alexandria, and Zlatan’s…shyness.
He came charging up to Luís on Luís’ horse, head up and laughing through the
blood splatters on his face. “Hey, I got it back! That bastard who knocked you
off tried to jump a camel but it snapped at him and he fell off. Idiot.”
The horse was still battle-crazed and rearing and plunging like mad, eyes
rolling and froth coming from its mouth. How the hell Zlatan was staying on it
Luís didn’t know, but he didn’t want to figure it out by watching any
longer—the next time the reins flew his way, he snatched them out of the air
and hung on till the horse’s head was forced down.
Zlatan swung lightly out of the saddle and would’ve made a perfect landing if
the horse hadn’t suddenly lunged at him. The reins slashed through Luís’ hands
and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold the beast, so he just let them go and
went for Zlatan instead, dragging the boy out of the way. Henrik showed up just
when he had to, as usual, and seized the reins instead, and Luís hauled himself
and Zlatan out of the man’s way.
The moment they were clear, Luís’ palms burned again as Zlatan whipped his arm
away. “Leave off! I could’ve—”
“That’s a damn good horse,” Luís instantly snapped. “It’s no good bringing it
back if you go and break its back, you damn giant.”
His hands still pained him so he spit into them, then gingerly pressed the
palms together. Behind them, Henrik was now cooing to the calming horse and
when Luís looked up, Zlatan was actually watching that with a somewhat dubious
expression on his face. But he turned back to Luís almost immediately, his eyes
narrowing a little.
“I’m not that heavy,” he finally said.
Luís reminded himself to smile later, when Zlatan was an oblivious, rather
lopsided ball beneath his blankets. “So what happened to the whoreson cunt who
hit me with that lance-butt?”
“Oh, I killed him. It’s not as bad as everybody says—you just stab them in the
throat and they stop moving. But he got all over me…he stinks.” Zlatan wrinkled
his nose and flipped his hands, sending blood drops all over the place. Then he
tried to wipe his face, but only managed to smear more gore over his cheeks.
“If you’re going to cut someone’s throat, you try not to be on the same side to
keep that from happening. You’re lucky that there’s enough wounded we’ll have
to stay a day at the next oasis, so you’ll have time to wash up. Once we’re
there—leave that be till we are, and yes, I know it’s starting to itch,” Luís
said. He separated his hands and gauged the redness of their welts, then
scraped off the spit on his trousers and went to go get his horse back.
Instead of protesting, Zlatan fell into step a little behind, and when Luís
turned around, the boy was busy trying to clean off his sword with part of his
burnoose. He angled off a second later to go up to Henrik, already grinning and
talking again as the two of them began to rehash the skirmish. They’d been on
different ends of the caravan for it, so Luís let them be. Henrik would keep
them on time.
* * *
“He’s good,” Henrik said. “He’ll be better than me.”
Luís paused, looking into the bucket, and then dumped it over his head. He
tossed it to the other man so he could give his hair a last scrubbing. “He’s
got a natural gift with the sword and his aim with a bow will get better the
more chances he has, but—”
“He didn’t go after that horse-thief alone. He got some of the men to go along
and they trapped the thief into running into the camel so he fell out of the
saddle, and it was all his idea.” Henrik put a knee up on the edge of the well
and dropped the bucket into it, then hauled it back up. He dumped about half of
it over his head before pouring the remainder more carefully over his
bloodstained boots. “It was a pretty good idea.”
After a moment, Luís picked up his shirt from the rail where he’d hung it. He
flipped it out between his hands, then held it up so the dying sun burned
through the thin cloth, a huge dark red blot over the heart. “If it worked,
then it must have been,” he said, and threw the shirt over his head. “Henke,
would you go along with him?”
Henrik took his time scrubbing his boots clean, first rubbing them with a stick
and then a damp rag. Then he sat down on the edge of the well and, after giving
each a good shake, pulled them back out. And then he answered: “I did.”
“All right, then,” Luís said, looking at the setting sun. “Damn. That lanky
brat’s just peeled off my best man.”
To which Henrik said nothing, but before he left he suddenly turned a simple
shoulder-clap into a hard, short hug. His hand lingered after they’d pulled
apart, sliding down Luís’ arm, and then he turned away.
Going about the camels and mediating between Drogba and the merchants as the
goods were repacked kept Luís up late into the night so he ate dinner alone,
then laid down to sleep long after Henrik and Zlatan had done so. His mind was
still on everything he needed to do the next day, and he could have used the
distraction of dissecting old battles with Zlatan; he caught himself hitching
the hem of his blanket through his fingers several times before he finally just
shoved it beneath his hip and shut his eyes. If sleep still wanted to elude
him, then he couldn’t say he hadn’t tried for it.
But he did doze off for a while. Not long enough, and he knew that before his
eyes snapped open and his fingers curled around his sword.
“It’s me,” Zlatan said.
Luís realized he’d forgotten to smile about earlier, but given the way his body
had surrendered to aches but not yet to rest, he wasn’t inclined to make up for
that now. He let go of his sword and rolled over, squinting up. “So?”
Zlatan blinked. Then he smiled wryly, his annoyance needing a visible swallow
to be dismissed. “The sword works.”
After a second, Luís closed his eyes and reached down to pull the blanket back
over himself. “Good, it wasn’t a waste.”
He let his breathing slow and relaxed his limbs, counting off in his head. And
when he got to a hundred and still hadn’t fallen back asleep, he opened his
eyes.
“Are you hurt? Scared? Sick? Confused?” When Zlatan answered each with a
derisive, confused shake of the head, Luís let his head roll back with a sigh.
“Then what? It’s only a couple hours till dawn.”
The boy bit his lip against an obviously sarcastic retort, then ducked his
head. His shoulders moved awkwardly back and forth, and then, oddly enough, he
hunched down further so his and Luís’ head were nearly level, almost like a
cringing dog. His tongue flicked out and over his lip and then he opened his
mouth, but whatever he wanted to say didn’t quite make it out before he exhaled
sharply and just pushed forward.
Luís understood then and rose quickly on his elbow, getting his other arm
around so he could block Zlatan by pushing it against the boy’s shoulder. “No.”
“Then what?” Zlatan hissed. He stopped where he was, his eyes glittering in the
dimness. “Henke says you sleep with men and women.”
“Because I like them, not because they’re in debt to me. Which you’re not—I
gave you that sword. I didn’t contract you to anything when I did that,” Luís
quietly replied. He waited till Zlatan was throwing a frustrated glance off to
the side before he looked past the boy’s shoulder, towards Henrik’s sleeping
form. Then he returned his gaze to Zlatan’s face before the boy noticed.
Zlatan pressed his lips together, like he was physically pulling the nasty
words back into his mouth. Then he cocked his head. “What if I like you?”
“I’m flattered, but—”
“What, only if you like them?” Zlatan snapped.
“I do like you,” Luís said. He finally let a little of his exasperation into
his voice and then had to turn his arm quick to seize Zlatan by the shoulder.
“But I don’t want to bed you, all right? I’m sorry if that hurts, but it’s not
meant to be an insult.”
The shoulder jerked away from Luís, but he dug his fingers in and held on till
Zlatan stopped moving. The boy tossed his head a few times, not wanting to look
at Luís, but eventually he grew too embarrassed at himself and reverted to the
bold stare. “Why not?”
It was very quiet where they were, lying in a small stable they’d paid rent for
to one of the villagers living around the oasis. So quiet that Luís could make
out the slow, steady rhythm of Henrik’s breath, the quicker uneven pants from
Zlatan, and his own careful inhale. “Henke wasn’t lying—I did lie with both,
once upon a time. But for a while now there’s only been one man for me. I knew
him a long time before I met you.”
For a long moment, Zlatan looked at him and it was all Luís could do to return
the favor and meet the gaze. Then Zlatan snorted, half his mouth trying to pull
itself up into a smile, and looked down. “Oh. You’re…in love with him. Is that
how you say it?”
“Unfortunately,” Luís muttered. He loosened his grip on Zlatan’s shoulder, and
when the boy made to shrug, pulled his hand away. “He can be just as
frustrating as you are…God knows I could’ve picked easier ways to get into
trouble.”
Zlatan’s head bobbed a bit, as if he were swallowing. Then he made an impatient
noise and looked up again. “So why…why all of this?” His hands spread a little
on the dirt, then turned over so his palms were towards Luís. “Why bring me
along?”
“I’m going to free you at Alexandria.” Luís pushed off his elbow and laid down
again, then pulled his arm out straight in front of him and rubbed at it. The
damn thing had gone numb already from the weight put on it. “You’re too known
in Cairo to the wrong people, I’d think, and anyway, there wasn’t a point in
freeing you there. From Alexandria you can work your way to wherever you want.
Sweden, even.”
“Because…you like me.” It wasn’t quite a statement. “You just don’t want to
fuck me.”
Even if it wouldn’t soothe the stinging, Luís had to smile at the trace of
injured pride in the boy’s voice. But only for a moment, since that pride had
gotten its hurt from being twisted out of its proper shape. “To be honest, I’m
not supposed to fuck anyone. But my way of thinking is you break a rule once,
there’s no point in trying to paper over the damage.”
Zlatan frowned, his brows drawing so close they more or less met across the top
of his nose. “What?”
“I’m not of noble blood, and I never was in the Mamelukes. But I can read.
Think about that,” Luís said. “You were in Europe till you were twelve, weren’t
you? Do you remember any of that?”
“I…I don’t like thinking about what I can’t have. Except I can’t help it
sometimes, but I don’t like it,” Zlatan eventually said. He shrugged. “What are
you saying? Somebody did this to you, had pity on you and then pitied you some
more?”
His voice rose a bit at the end, turning razor-sharp, and it was hard not to
look again to see if Henrik had finally roused. But instead Luís sighed and
closed his eyes. “Zlatan, before I came here I was a priest. In the Church. I
was a smart boy and was spotted by them, and they said they’d feed me for the
rest of my life, so I went with them and let them teach me. Maybe they did it
out of pity as well, but I still appreciate how much what I got from them has
helped me since then.”
A breeze got in through a crack and sifted through his hair so Luís ducked his
head. Then he grunted and shifted till his back was pressed against the wall,
getting the pressure off his knee. All the damn old injuries were complaining
again, as if the conversation wasn’t weight enough.
“I don’t really know why I like you this much any more than I really know why
I’m in love with that…that infuriating bastard,” Luís muttered. “You do speak
Swedish, like the woman who ended up making me leave Milan…that’s where I was
posted before. But she was very sweet. Never threw things at me.”
“What about her husband?” Zlatan was too quick sometimes.
Then again, it was old history. Nearly a different life, though now and again
the remnants pained Luís. “He was a strict old ass, which was where his
brains—he found out when the baby had the wrong color hair, and my nose, the
poor brat.” Luís briefly slitted his eyes open. “Girl would’ve been about ten
years younger than you, right now. I left before I heard what happened, but
she’s almost certainly dead.”
He closed his eyes again, and kept them shut even when something touched his
shoulder. The fingers curled over his upper arm, then gave him a hard shake
before withdrawing. Zlatan sighed loudly.
The top of his head jarred into the underside of Luís’ chin, and his knees did
likewise to Luís’ shins. He snorted once before settling down and finally
letting Luís pull the blankets back up. “It’s really cold out here at night.
Colder than in Cairo.”
“There’s no buildings to hold heat,” Luís muttered. He paused, then got his arm
around Zlatan’s shoulders and pushed the boy down so his head fit better
against Luís’ jaw. Speaking of noses, Zlatan’s own could nearly speak for
itself. “My daughter also would’ve been a lot smaller, and taken up less of the
blanket.”
Zlatan made an annoyed sound. “Is that supposed to make me jealous? I like
being able to see over everyone.”
“You would.” Luís let his arm slacken and finally went to sleep.
* * *
They suffered one more raid before they reached Alexandria, but it was small
and the largest annoyance was Drogba, who at first refrained from fighting
supposedly due to his leg, but then jumped in roaring when an arrow scored the
flank of his favorite camel. It took a while to calm him down and persuade him
that going after the raiders would delay the caravan, and that of course
wouldn’t be in the best interest of his financial future.
“Wasn’t so bad a route, was it? I don’t know, I’m thinking of offering it
regularly now. Not sure why they stopped using it before, but the problem
doesn’t seem to have come up again,” Drogba said. He leaned on the shoulder of
a younger relative while they and Luís watched the goldsmith weigh out the
dinars. “Ah, ah, you said—”
“Keep going.” Luís waved his hand towards the chest of gold from which the
goldsmith was plucking the coins, suppressing a sigh. “I remember. I keep my
word.”
Drogba grinned, his fingers rubbing together as if he already felt the dinars
trickling through them. His leg was mending well and as soon as he’d changed
the wrappings and paid for his night’s lodging, he’d likely be off to the slums
for entertainment of all kinds. “For a European, you do. Well, my thanks for
your patronage, and be sure that my door’s open whenever you’ve got another
caravan planned.”
He had Kolo collect the coins in a sack, then left as Luís was paying the
goldsmith his fee. Then Luís picked the few coins that remained out of the
chest, pocketed them, and slung the empty chest over his shoulders. He ducked
out of the dark little room and into sunlight as white as a northern maid’s
complexion.
All the mercenaries had already been paid off and Henrik had taken the handful
of men who likewise belonged to Luís’ household off to the home of Luís’
banker, who was putting them up for the few days they’d be in Alexandria. Toldo
liked to say that he offered much more than financial advice, but it hadn’t
escaped Luís’ attention how the man used the presence of Luís’ men in his house
to intimidate any recalcitrant debtors who happened to be in town at the same
time. Padua might have been his birthplace, but his character owed more to that
city’s Venetian overlords.
He was out when Luís finally arrived, which was fine since Luís didn’t intend
to tell him about the gold ingots—formerly Roman coins—right away and thus
could get that transferred to his room without raising suspicion. Only Henrik
was available to help, and when asked about it, the other man shrugged and
said, “Bathhouse.”
Luís grinned. “Do his feet hang over the edge?”
Henrik suddenly had a coughing fit, and it lasted all the way till they’d
gotten the chest safely locked in Luís’ room. The contents had shifted abruptly
as they’d set it down and a corner had jabbed him in the leg, so he sat down in
the hall and gave the spot a good hard massage. “I was talking to the servants
and they said Zidane arrived four days ago.”
It was momentarily on Luís’ mind to ask just how Henrik knew that would be
wanted news, but they’d known each other a bit too long for Luís to be looking
in that gift horse’s mouth. So instead he nodded. “I think we’d better avoid
the courts, then. I won’t be seeing him before I go back. Tomorrow evening’s
when we’ll be down on the docks. Now, did you already have your turn in the
steam room, or…”
“No, but you can—well, wait.” Henrik gave his calf a last pat before getting to
his feet. “I’ll go make sure you’ve got enough soap. Zlatan’s…gotten very fond
of it.”
“Wonderful, wonderful invention, soap is. Sometimes I’d say we need the East
around simply for that,” Luís said, trying not to laugh. “I’ll stop by the
kitchen first in that case and see what’s dinner.”
He was still there when someone coughed lightly by his left elbow. Luís paused,
his eyes going to the rows of pots hanging on the wall before him, so shiny the
reflection of the rest of the room could be seen in them. Then he spun on his
heel, putting out his hand so a moment later he could stop himself by grabbing
the counter. “Zizou! You liar!”
Zinedine winced and glanced at the door, but no one was currently in the
kitchen. For now—there were pots bubbling over the fire and a half-gutted fish
lying over the central table, so Luís took the other man by the arm and pulled
him into a back hallway. He sniffed, then pinched his nose between his fingers
to muffle the noise as he blew that out; the dust meant it’d be an isolated
enough place for a quick talk.
“I hope the trip didn’t ruin your sense of propriety—what little you have of
it.” A flicker of amusement passed through Zinedine’s eyes. “I had a hard
enough time getting away from my retinue for this business.”
Luís’ eyebrow rose. He stepped back, rubbing at his nose again. “Ah, and I
thought maybe you’d reneged on what you said before and decided to call on me
after all. You could’ve sent a messenger instead.”
“Not for this,” Zinedine said, and he reached out and took Luís by the
shoulders. His lips were slightly dry and had a trace of salt to them, a
deliciously stinging counterpart to the sweetness of his mouth. He pressed hard
so Luís went back onto one heel, then withdrew so swiftly that Luís almost
wondered if he’d been struck late in the journey by a case of sun-fancies.
But no, Zinedine was still there, shadows lying sharp against the planes of his
face. His tongue ran over his lip as if he meant to speak, but his mouth failed
to move. It was as if he’d caught himself off-guard instead of Luís.
“If you’d mentioned we were doing it this way, I would’ve had it with me,” Luís
finally said. “Right now I’d have to go back through the whole house to get
it.”
“I don’t need it now. When are you going to the docks to load your cargo?” The
last of that was a little muffled as somebody came back into the kitchen and
Zinedine retreated further into the shadows.
Luís looked at him for a few seconds, at the high-bridged nose and narrowed
eyes, the callused hands tensed up against fine silk and linen. “There’s no
expert waiting, is there? You’re sure enough about what it is to get it up
here. Why are you really in Alexandria?”
Zinedine lifted his chin, gaze slanting down his nose. Then he turned away,
apparently distracted by the rattling of something like lentils into a pot.
“I’ve spoken out too often at court. I don’t like the way Kait Bey is taking
things, I don’t like…this isn’t the empire of Saladin anymore. This sultan
doesn’t even deserve to win against the Turks. So they’ve sent me up so I can
make a mistake among the foreigners and they’ve an excuse.”
“Are you using it as a bargaining chip? I would’ve thought it would be better
if you shifted your whole household up here in that case,” Luís muttered. A
shadow passed over the doorway near them and he glanced up, then carefully
moved so he was out of the line of sight, should anyone poke in their head.
“It’s too late for bargaining. There’s only crushing the old and starting
anew.” The other man turned his head farther, till his far cheek was nearly
touching the wall. Then he ducked his head and a low growl rumbled from his
throat. “Those unfaithful bastards—they send me here, they think I’m the one
who’ll turn betrayer? Well, fine. The Turks aren’t the rightful successors
either, and if the rutter goes to Europe then no matter how successful they are
here they’ll never rule the world. Neither of them deserve to.”
Luís inhaled sharply, though to be honest he only grasped the raw anger of
Zinedine’s words at first. Then the full understanding of what the other man’s
action would do slowly came, like the light winds blowing ahead of a storm, and
for a moment he didn’t breathe at all.
Something grazed his arm, and when he looked up Zinedine was standing beside
him, fingers laying against Luís’ elbow. Zinedine’s face was smooth and calm
again, and his gaze lowered to Luís’. “This is not your war. I asked you for a
favor—the favor ends when you return it to me. Then you don’t need to concern
yourself further.”
“When it’ll be my homeland that deals with the consequences of your gift?” Luís
hissed. He saw the flash in Zinedine’s eyes and put up his hand, then cupped
the palm around the point of the man’s shoulder. “No, no, I’ll be giving it
back. I’ll even help you pick out a ship for it. But damn it, don’t stay
behind. Go with it. Go…you showed me the East, so let me show you the West.”
Zinedine pulled his shoulder back, then reached up and wrapped his fingers
around Luís’ wrist when Luís didn’t allow him to move away. He tugged once
before he sighed, his fingers spreading a little to overlap Luís’ hand. “All
this time and you still think of yourself as a guest in this country?”
“They’re right—you never were really a Mameluke or an amir of the sultan
either. So what’s the point in staying?” Luís asked. He pressed the tip of his
tongue to the edge of his teeth, then let go of Zinedine and stepped back. The
dust swirled up from beneath his slippers and he watched the motes dance from
dark to light in the half-dark. “Tomorrow evening, yes. I’ve told you enough
times where I usually meet with the ships’ captains…”
A slow breath, a rustle of cloth, and when Luís lifted his head, Zinedine had
gone. He counted to fifteen before he walked out into the kitchen and promptly
scared the cook into almost spearing him with a fire-spit. The poor man was
still trembling when Luís left to go to his rooms, but for once Luís really
didn’t care to laugh.
* * *
Zlatan pressed the bridge of his nose hard into Luís’ shoulder. “But you never
even taught me Portuguese. How am I supposed to talk to anybody?”
“Henrik’s going with you. He knows Spanish and Portuguese and a little Italian,
which should cover nearly everywhere you need to go. It’s about time he left
anyway—he’s over his dead wife and he’s getting bored here,” Luís mumbled. He
jerked at his arm and bumped his knee into Zlatan’s rock-like shin, which sent
both of them rolling away while cursing. Then he stopped himself on his back
and stared up at the ceiling. “Wait, what are you doing here anyway? They gave
you plenty of blankets and a bigger mattress than I’ve got.”
“Not trying to get you to sleep with me.” The blankets came first, tossed over
Luís, and then Zlatan crawled back beneath them in an attempt to squeeze his
gigantic frame into the irregular spaces around Luís. The wooden frame creaked
loudly and he swore at it in what Luís now knew was the dialect of his father’s
Bosnian village.
Luís closed his eyes. “Then why am I still awake, and not dreaming of the hams
in Portugal, or the beautiful women of Milan?”
“I have no idea. Maybe you’re not trying hard enough.” That little laugh of
Zlatan’s trickled off into an awkward silence. He laid on knees and elbows for
a moment, then lifted himself so his heavy breath on Luís’ face made Luís open
his eyes. His hair was waving into his eyes so they couldn’t be seen, but the
rigidity of his parted lips, the tension in the flesh around them, said enough.
“Luís?”
“You don’t owe me. I just feel like doing this,” Luís said.
Zlatan snorted. He tossed his head so some of the hair briefly flipped out of
his eyes, but then it slipped back strand by strand. “That man, the one you’re
an idiot for. It’s the same one who gave me to you, isn’t it? Zizou.”
“Yes,” Luís said after a moment.
The boy’s head dipped a little, then hitched up as he threw back his shoulders.
He seemed on the point of another stiff recoil, but then he just sighed. “You
know, I was only there for a couple days, but he was all right. I didn’t mind
him. I saw him practicing with a lance and he’s really good at it, too.”
“He’s a little rusty now—neither of us have gone into a real battle for a few
years.” Luís reached up and touched a lock of Zlatan’s hair and Zlatan
flinched. He paused, then swept it back from the boy’s brow and let his fingers
go on to curve around the back of Zlatan’s skull. Of course Zlatan resisted,
but eventually he let Luís pull his head down to lie on Luís’ chest. “Watch for
Henke, all right? He gets seasick. Really. You look at his face and wonder when
the apocalypse started.”
Zlatan made some muffled incredulous noise, then pushed his head back and forth
over Luís’ breast a few times, his feet kicking here and there way down at the
end of the mattress. He finally seemed to settle down, his knee jabbing Luís in
the calf and his hand curled tightly into Luís’ side, and it was damned
uncomfortable but somehow sleep worked its way into it as well.
* * *
“That’s not funny, José,” Luís said.
Mourinho’s lower lip pulled up flat over his upper one in an odd little moue,
then went back to its accustomed position as he shrugged. “You know, there’s
all this bad news about the new port taxes and the Turks cutting off the
overland caravans from India, and the shortage of hemp, but I still try not to
let it ruin my mood. I can’t—at sea you think something will go wrong and it
will.”
“Well, we’re still in the harbor, and Zlatan and Henrik can both add two and
two together. If you land in Italy and my cargo’s a little short, they don’t
need to wait for my word to do something about it.” Luís rolled his eyes as he
turned away, looking down the line of piers and the ships in various stages of
docking and undocking at them. Once upon a time he’d thought Mourinho was a
very witty, intelligent fellow, but then he’d started doing business with the
man. Still, Mourinho ran the fastest caravels between Italy and Alexandria and
he’d never lost a ship to pirates. “How’s Lisbon?”
“Busy. There’s supposed to be another fleet going out within the year to find
the end of Africa, under Bartholomeu Dias,” Mourinho said with elaborate
nonchalance. “It’s running late, like usual. The man doesn’t know how to
organize.”
“Oh, you know him personally?” A little party of horsemen had just come down
the main road to the docks and was now turning onto the piers. From where Luís
was standing, the setting sun was in his eyes, but he thought he could make out
official banners. And then they turned, and his eyes burned. He drew in a sharp
breath, then spun on his heel and stepped up onto the gangplank.
Mourinho had been replying, but he now abandoned that to go after Luís. “Are
they here for you? What did you put on my ship?”
“I don’t know yet, but you’re ready to go now, aren’t you?” Luís snapped back.
He wrapped his hand around his sword just beneath the hilt and crooked his
thumb so the first inch or so of the blade clicked free of the scabbard.
Behind him, Mourinho immediately turned around and started giving orders. Low,
natural voice, so as not to unduly alarm anyone yet. He had his eccentricities,
but at the end of the day he always honored his deals. Maybe he didn’t have
problems with forcing others to break them, but—well, Henrik knew what he was
doing, and Zlatan learned quickly.
By the time Luís got to the end of the gangplank, the horsemen were only a few
yards away and he could make out every detail of Zinedine’s stony expression.
The other man rode in the center, in what was normally the place of honor, but
the men around him didn’t wear his emblem. Luís casually lapped his hand up the
scabbard till his fingers had curled around the sword-hilt.
“Luís?” Zinedine called, tone neutral. The man just to Zinedine’s right rose in
his stirrups and Luís could see that his left hand was hidden by Zinedine’s
body.
Luís was opening his mouth to reply when Zinedine moved his head a little, just
enough for their gazes to meet. Then Zinedine abruptly threw himself backward,
his arms swinging out to either side of himself.
There was a wet, crunching, horribly recognizable noise. Zinedine staggered in
the air as if he were hanging from invisible threads, then folded forward a
little with the blood already frothing from his nose. The horses next to him
screamed and reared, wildly trying to lunge away but the group was packed too
tightly and instead they simply cannonaded into their neighbors to spread the
panic. The horseman to Zinedine’s right was knocked half-off his horse and his
left arm flailed so the lance in its hand threw bloody spray all over the
place.
Then the nearest horse was plunging at Luís and he didn’t think, just stooped
while whipping out his sword at the beast’s ankles. The blade bit and then was
wrenched away by the horse’s momentum before he could pull it back; it and its
rider toppled over a few feet behind him. The next rider was already charging
down and Luís only had a dagger now.
He ducked and the lance slashed his arm instead of his head. Then he spun,
hearing hoofbeats, and something ripped in his belly. The pain flamed up as if
he’d been touched by a red-hot poker, then turned liquid and dizzying. Luís
lost his balance and stumbled, grabbing reflexively at his middle and his hands
closed around a wooden pole. He breathed and his lungs burned like sea-water
filled them, and he looked up into a pair of furious, hating eyes.
But then they widened. The lance-head twisted in Luís, nearly bringing him to
his knees, before suddenly tearing free as the horsemen slumped over. The
bastard’s horse kicked at the air before taking off like lightning down the
docks, and in its place Zinedine was almost fallen from his saddle, his face
bloody from nose to chin and somebody’s gory lance dropping from his hand.
Zinedine had just enough strength to turn his horse so Luís could grab the
saddle trappings instead of being trampled. His hand flopped against Luís’
shoulder and for a moment he hunched over Luís, eyes wide and dark and already
clouding over. Then his mouth twisted, he snarled, and he shoved himself off to
go down on the other side.
Luís choked, swore, and then somehow dragged himself onto the horse. Then he
had to duck as a lance darted over his head, but something hit his horse so it
went catapulting forward, running blindly up the pier.
Mourinho had already cast off and his ship had drawn several yards away. So
Luís closed his eyes, commended the good parts of his soul to God, and jumped
the horse. And when he felt his feet rise so their tops bumped into the top of
the stirrups, he kicked them free and leaped himself from the saddle. That took
all he had left, so he never felt his landing.
* * *
The smell of an onion woke Luís, causing him to stir weak as a newborn, and
then the pain shocked him fully awake. He groaned, peering out at the world.
“Eat it,” Henrik said.
Luís stared at him. The narrow confines of a ship’s cabin slowly came into view
behind the other man, and the air stank of salt but not of smoke and spices and
manure, so they had left Alexandria behind.
Henrik coughed hard and jammed the cut side of the onion up to Luís’ face so
Luís’ eyes began to water. “Eat it,” he said again, voice thickening.
“No. I—” Luís stopped to swear as something twisted in his belly “—damn it, I
know how deep the lance went. You don’t need to do that…Henke, there’s a little
package…”
The other man stared into his face for a long time. Then Henrik abruptly turned
away, carelessly flinging the onion over his shoulder. “Fuck.”
So that was what it took to make Henrik swear, Luís idly thought. He wanted to
close his eyes but he wasn’t sure if he could open them again, so he made
himself mouth bits of liturgies till Henrik came back with the rutter. After
dropping that on the bunk, he helped Luís sit up and then he left again.
A few minutes later, he came back with Mourinho, who for once looked as if his
seriousness was genuine. “That boy pulled you over the side,” José said. “Then
he scrubbed his hands till your other man finally told him all the blood was
coming from himself, because—”
“He didn’t kill any of your crew before that, did he?” Luís asked. When
Mourinho shook his head, Luís grinned and let his head fall back against the
wall. He flicked a finger at the rutter, and after a moment, Mourinho picked it
up and unwrapped it, shooting cautious glances at Luís all the while. At least
till he started reading, and then he simply stared at Luís. “It’s a copy of a
book from the Library of Alexandria, so I think it’s real. Don’t tell anybody I
gave you that, all right?”
Mourinho clearly wanted to ask why not, but in the end he merely closed the
rutter and carefully rewrapped it. “What can I do?”
“Take Henrik and Zlatan to Italy, give them all the damn cargo—it’s theirs now.
If you can help them get my money from those leeches, fucking Florentine
bankers, you can take a quarter but they get the rest.” A wave of nausea passed
over Luís and he had to stop and try to catch his breath. “And make sure
Portugal wins.”
“I never knew you still cared about our country,” Mourinho said after a moment.
“You’ve lived away from it for so long.”
Luís snorted. It hurt. “It’s still my homeland, no matter where I was. I did
what I could when I could, and didn’t waste my time when I couldn’t.”
Whether or not that really made sense to Mourinho, he certainly made himself
look as if it did. He gave Luís a nod, then tucked the book beneath his arm and
began to get up. Then he stopped, glancing back. “Land or sea?”
“Land. Even if I die in the next second,” Luís said.
A little appreciation touched Mourinho’s tight smile. “It’s a good thing you
brought such a load of spices with you. We’ll need them to cut the smell. I’ll
subtract their cost from my landing fee.”
Then he left, and only a few seconds later Zlatan came stumbling down the
stairs. He came through the door and crossed the room without much apparent
care for the rolling and heaving of the ship, but was so cautious about getting
into the bunk that finally Luís lifted an arm. Which just about did it for his
revival, but Zlatan got the point and got on the damn bed, sliding his shoulder
beneath Luís’ arm.
“Henke’s throwing up in the stern.” Zlatan coughed, and then again before he
looked up. He ducked his head almost immediately to angrily press a hand to his
eyes, unconsciously flashing his raw palms at Luís. “We got away, but not even
all the men on the pier got killed. Why—what happened?”
Luís told him, as briefly as possible without leaving Zlatan in the dark about
anything. It took quite a few restarts, but eventually he finished. His fingers
and toes were cold; he couldn’t do anything about his toes but he pushed his
hands against Zlatan and after the first shiver, the boy just wrapped himself
around Luís. His beaky nose wedged itself into the side of Luís’ neck.
“I don’t want to go to Italy,” he said. The words tripped over each other as
they spilled from his mouth, furious and careless and pained. “I never said I
wanted to. I never said that to you. I just said I wanted—”
“Well, the quickest way to Sweden is overland from Italy.” Either Luís’ hearing
was going or his voice was thinning out, leaving only the sharp edges. He
grimaced, trying to will himself into sounding a little softer. There wasn’t
any need to be cutting now, after all. “Look, Zlatan, you really want something
and you’ve got to put up with how you get it. It’s usually never pleasant.
That’s just how it works.”
Zlatan drew in a long, shuddering, snuffling breath. “I’m never falling in
love. Never.”
That made Luís laugh, though the shaking of his body hurt like a—he gritted his
teeth and waited for the numbness to return. It didn’t take long. “It’s worth
it. It…oh, don’t worry. I’m fine. And you’re going to Italy and then home—see
the Milan cathedral, it’s on your way—and somewhere you’re going to see beauty,
real beauty, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“In fucking Milan?” Zlatan hissed. His throat sounded as if it were closing in
on him.
They’d gone to Swedish somewhere along the line, Luís absently noted. “Maybe.
Maybe somewhere else. But—damn it, Zlatan, I didn’t go through all the trouble
of letting you back into the world so you could lock yourself up again. Tell me
you’re going to look. Tell me you’ll start looking the moment you set foot in
Italy and you won’t stop till—till you find—”
“All right, all right, all right.” Zlatan put a hand against the bandages
wrapped round Luís’ stomach and pushed down till Luís stopped wheezing. Then he
looked up—he flinched, then steadied. And he carefully wiped the dribble of
blood from Luís’ nostril. “All right, I promise.”
Luís looked at him, and saw that he did mean it. And then Luís smiled. “Good.
Now…where’s your sword? No, not—I just want to…what am I saying, Mourinho’s a
Christian. Well, he knows the words, anyway…go ask him for a cross.”
After a long, confused look, Zlatan got off the bunk. But instead of going up
onto the deck, he groped around till he’d found his sword. Then he came back
and sat on the edge of the bunk, holding the sword upside-down before Luís.
“Don’t…you need oil, or something…?”
“I’m still a priest. As far as I’m concerned, anyway, and God will…and the
miracle of transubstantiation, you’d think, would stretch…” The breaths were
coming shorter now, so Luís had to leave off the explanation. He braced himself
and wiped the sweat off his brow, then performed the Last Rites on himself as
best he could.
Then he slumped back against the wall, his eyes falling nearly shut before he
could help himself. He heard Zlatan put the sword away, and then the boy came
back, pulling him to the side a little so he had a slightly more comfortable
pillow on Zlatan’s shoulder.
“I almost hate you right now,” Zlatan whispered.
Luís snorted and smiled. “I wish I’d made that idiot stay the night so he could
leave with us. And I wish I’d taken my daughter with me, so you could have met
her. Other than that, I don’t have any regrets.”
His eyes closed all the way, and the dark slowly lulled him into its comforting
embrace.
* * *
Two Years Later
“—can’t violate the right of sanctuary!” the priest said.
Zlatan closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and continued to mop the blood
off his face. “Olof, if he opens his mouth again, mind proving that the
violation’s already happened? Now what the hell is so valuable that—”
He opened his eyes just as a baby’s scream echoed through the high vaults of
the church. It’d come from a little bundle Henrik was carrying, and a few
moments later the men dragged out the parents. Very rich, even with all the
dirt and rips that marred their clothing, and probably noble blood from the way
they didn’t sob and shriek, but instead glowered at him. The man in particular
seemed to be trying to set Zlatan afire with his eyes, which were an unusually
light green even for Northern Italy.
Then Henrik walked in front of them and both the man and the woman’s attention
snapped to the baby. The woman bit her lip and sagged a little against the men
restraining her, but jerked up again when a last soldier came out of the little
store-room hauling a kicking, biting little whirlwind of a boy. The boy
suddenly flung something at him and the soldier ducked, then swore and raised
his hand.
A moment later he was using that hand to cradle his throbbing jaw, and Zlatan
was holding out the little toy horse to the boy.
“Jesus Christ, sir!” the idiot complained.
“Well, you didn’t shut up when I hit you, so the brat’s probably not about to.”
Zlatan poked the horse at the boy and he flinched back, then turned around to
stare confusedly at his very stiff, very still parents. He turned back when
Zlatan cleared his throat. “Listen, I’ve got a real one of these outside. A
pretty bay. How would you like to see her?”
The boy’s eyes flicked between Zlatan and the toy horse, and his tiny hands
pulled anxiously at his clothes. “I see real ones all the time,” he finally
said. “My father owns the best horses in the city.”
“Does he?” Zlatan said, keeping his tone light. He ignored the low hiss and
then the pained grunt from the boy’s father. “I thought the Sforza stables are
the best.”
“No, they aren’t. The Maldini horses are better.” The boy lifted his chin, then
darted forward and snatched the toy from Zlatan.
Then he turned, but before he could run off, Zlatan scooped him up and carried
him over. His little brave moment was apparently over, since he was like a
small statue in Zlatan’s arms as Zlatan looked a bit more closely at his
father. “So you’ve got to be Paolo Maldini,” Zlatan said. “Everyone else is
dead and on display.”
The woman—Adriana, if Zlatan remembered rightly—sucked in a breath. The man
widened those pretty green eyes, then drew himself up as best he could and
nodded. “I am. You don’t talk like Sforza’s man.”
“I don’t have any quarrel with him right now either,” Zlatan said, shrugging.
The boy began to cry, very quietly.
Paolo looked at his son, struggling for a moment with his composure. Then he
dropped his head and stopped pulling against the men holding him. “You don’t
necessarily need to start one. Is there…anything I could do or give that’d
persuade you to tour a different church?” he said, voice much quieter than
before.
Henrik raised his eyebrows, to which Zlatan snorted. Then Zlatan nodded and the
men released the pair; Adriana came rushing up to take her son from Zlatan and
then edged as close as she could to Henrik. She looked up when Zlatan took
Paolo by the arm and pulled him aside, but didn’t move. Her face was pale and a
sickly sheen of sweat covered her brow.
Zlatan looked at the man, fine clothes all ruined and bruises and cuts on his
arms and face that hadn’t come from Zlatan’s soldiers. Then he stepped quickly
forward, trapping Paolo against a pew-end, and curled his hand under Paolo’s
jaw. At first Paolo tried to jerk his head off and towards Adriana, but Zlatan
forced him back. He ran the ball of his thumb over Paolo’s cheek and watched
the man’s pupils grow till they’d nearly swallowed all the green.
“You’d need more than me leaving you alone to get out of here,” Zlatan said.
Paolo’s lips thinned. Then he visibly suppressed a grimace. “If my family’s
unhurt…”
That was enough; Zlatan dropped his hand, then grabbed Paolo’s arm and swung
him back towards his wife, who quickly bent her head back to her baby. He
nodded to Henrik and Olof, and the two of them began setting about seeing to
the retreat while he stayed behind with the priest.
“No offense, but nobody can know they’re still alive,” he told the man.
The old wizened bastard brightened a bit. “Oh, of course, my lord. Rest assured
that a small gratuity…”
Zlatan glanced at him, then slashed his throat. He made sure to stand where the
spray wouldn’t catch him, and then cleaned his sword on a bit of drapery while
the man went through his death throes.
“You’re no fucking priest,” he told the corpse.
Then he turned around for a last look at the soaring ceiling, the looming altar
and tabernacle.
“Not bad, and I’ve seen a couple cathedrals now. But this isn’t it, not for
me,” Zlatan murmured.
He turned on his heel and walked out.
* * *
Footnote: A staple of Viking and then Swedish medicine was onion soup, which
was fed to men with abdominal wounds. Later the wound would be smelled and if
the aroma of onions was detectable, then they knew the injury was too deep and
was fatal. Henrik’s improvising with the same idea in mind.
End Notes
     See the Introduction for my list of historical references.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
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