Dreamer: A Prequel to the Mongoliad (The Foreworld Saga) (6 page)

“Eptor,”
Raphael said. “He is no longer with us.”

Brother
Francis lowered his head. “May his soul find comfort with God,” he said with
heartfelt compassion.

Raphael
nodded curtly, not wishing to speak otherwise, but in his heart he wondered if
Eptor had not found solace in the arms of another.

“A
terrible tragedy, Damietta,” Brother Francis said, continuing his slow shuffle
toward the shack. “So many lost.”

“It
got worse,” Raphael said. “After your mission.”

“So
I heard,” Brother Francis said. His upper body twitched as if he was adjusting
the immense load borne by his bowed shoulders. “Pelagius refused to open his
heart to God, didn’t he?”

“Yes.
Damietta wasn’t enough. After your departure from Egypt, the legate began to
talk of marching on Cairo. Sir John and a number of the other lords abandoned
the cause, but the legate kept many with him — held them captive with promises
of God’s eternal reward. And then he discovered the prophecy. A lost book of
the Bible, supposedly written by a man named Clement. It spoke of a great
Crusader victory in Egypt. He held it up as proof that their mission was God’s
plan. But it was a lie, a heinous fabrication, and the march on Cairo was an
utter disaster. Al-Kamil took pity on the Christians after they foundered for
several days in the Nile valley. Many thought he would slay them all. Pelagius
too; I think he hoped for martyrdom.”

Brother
Francis snorted. He rubbed one hand over the other, and Raphael noticed black
streaks across the backs of both of the monk’s hands. Shadows of char that did
not smear under Brother Francis’s ministrations. “The fool knows nothing of
martyrdom,” he muttered. “He knows nothing at all.”

Realizing
he had spoken aloud, he visibly brightened and changed the subject. “Here we
are,” he announced, indicating the end of the path. “The closest you can get to
God and still have your feet upon the ground.”

Brother
Leo had warned Raphael that Brother Francis’s tiny cell was precariously
constructed, but in Raphael’s opinion, Brother Leo had failed in his estimation
of the true danger. The structure was not much more than a lean-to built from
scraps of wood. Open at two sides, it sat on the very edge of an immense
drop-off. One step too many, and a man would plunge a very long way to a rather
unpleasant death. Fluffy clouds drifted close by, not more than a hand’s width
or two above the peak of the shack, which was oriented in such a way that it
never received direct sunlight.

His
eyes
, Raphael
realized.
The light pains him.
How hard must it be for him to pray
here, so close to Heaven, when the darkness of a cave would be so much more
comfortable?

Brother
Francis ducked into the misshapen shack, folding his legs beneath him. He
knocked his walking stick about, rattling it off the walls and off the sides of
a squat chest shoved in one corner. Once he was comfortable, he patted the bare
ground next to him. “Don’t stand,” he said to Raphael. “It makes me nervous.
God would not bring you so far and then have you stumble.”

Raphael
didn’t need further prompting, and he stripped off his baldric in a smooth
motion, holding his scabbarded sword in his hand as he tucked himself under the
overhang. He arranged himself on the ground, his sword an impediment that he
was tempted to throw over the cliff’s edge.

“There,”
Brother Francis said once they were both settled. “Peaceful, isn’t it?” He
cocked his head as if he were listening.

Raphael
did the same, and heard nothing but the gentle sigh of the wind as it caressed
the clouds drifting overhead. “It is very peaceful,” he said.

“I
have been working on a new draft of my Rule,” Brother Francis said. He rubbed
the backs of his hands again. “I feel my time is running out, and there is so
much I want to say yet. So much I wanted to accomplish.” He turned his head
toward Raphael. “Does the idea of an untimely death frighten you?”

“Of
course,” Raphael replied.

“You
have fought on the field of battle. More than once.”

“I
have.”

“Do
you not feel death close at hand every time you draw your sword?”

Raphael
shifted awkwardly. “It is…my training that gives me the necessary courage,” he
said.

“What
about God? Does He not give you courage too?”

Raphael
did not answer.

“Hmm,”
Brother Francis said, returning his gaze to the cloud-strewn sky. “I carried a
sword once,” he said. “I wanted to be a chevalier, a French knight. Did you
know that?”

“Brother
Leo mentioned something to that effect,” Raphael admitted.

“Did
he tell you about Perugia? The Battle of Collestrada?” Brother Francis grunted
when Raphael nodded. “He is an old gossip, Leo. It is a good thing he is also
the kindest man I have ever met. Otherwise he would be insufferable.”

“He
is kind,” Raphael agreed. “I…when I arrived, I was a rather undignified guest…”

Brother
Francis offered him a smile. “We all are, at one time or another, here in God’s
house.” His hands began to rub one another, his fingers working the dark smears
on his skin. “How many of your brothers-in-arms were lost in Egypt?” he asked.

“All
but three of us,” Raphael said.

“I
am truly sorry.”

“I
could have saved them all,” Raphael admitted. “If I had just given the legate
what he asked for. I could have saved them.”

Brother
Francis was silent for a moment, his gaze drifting idly across the open sky.
“The prophecy,” he said finally, having found the memory he was looking for.
“He wanted you and Eptor to give him a prophecy. I remember it now. When I
returned from my stay with the Sultan, he was insisting that Eptor’s gift was
nothing more than heretical possession, the touch of the Devil among his camp.”

“I
refused to give him what he wanted,” Raphael said. “He wanted a witness,
someone who would have given credence to a lie of his devising. If it hadn’t
been for your intercession, we would have been branded as heretics and tossed
out of the camp.”

A
hard lump of laughter worked its way out of Raphael’s chest. “As it was, he
simply waited six months and tried again. This time, you weren’t around to
intercede. Nor was Sir John. The legate kept insisting; when I refused, he had
me flogged. He took Eptor and tried to make my friend tell him what he wanted
to hear. It didn’t work, of course. That was not Eptor’s…gift. All Pelagius succeeded
in doing was distressing Eptor to a point that he retreated further into his
illusion. And somewhere in that fog in his mind, he saw something he did not
like. Something that frightened him. Something he could not look away from.”

Raphael’s
voice grew hoarse. “He screamed all night. I could do nothing to calm him. It
was awful to listen to, but I couldn’t leave him. Nor could I bring myself to
end his misery. I sat with him; I was the only friend he ever had. I sat with
him until his fear burst his heart.”

Brother
Francis stopped rubbing his hands, resting them calmly in his lap. “You cannot
carry that blame,” he said. “I would have done the same in your stead.” Raphael
opened his mouth to protest otherwise, but the monk stopped him with a sidelong
glance. “You should consider that possibility, my son,” the monk said.
“Consider that I might be more at fault than you. In some convoluted fashion
that only God could truly apprehend, am I not to blame?”

“What?”
Raphael asked. “How?”

“Did
I not abandon you and Eptor to the legate? Did I not fail to convert Al-Kamil
to Christianity, to find a peaceful resolution to the enmity between the Church
and the Sultan? Have I not spent my entire life preaching nonviolence, calling
out each and every day for each of us to fill our hearts with nothing but
peace? And has my personal
crusade
lessened the violence that surrounds
us?”

Raphael
could not bring himself to vocalize agreement — the idea seemed so enormously
reprehensible in its cruelty — but he could not verbalize any cogent argument
to the contrary. His throat was too tight for any words to escape.

Brother
Francis offered him a kind smile. “I have been here for many weeks,” he said.
“Every day I ask God this question: What have I really accomplished? What have
I done that has made any difference?”

Raphael
nodded, hearing an echo of those questions in his own heart. “Has He offered
you an answer?” he asked.

Brother
Francis idly rubbed the back of his hand again, and Raphael noticed that, even
in the gloom of the shack, the shadows on the backs of the monk’s hands
remained. “He has,” Brother Francis said. “Rather, He will. Soon.” He smile
again, and this time his smile was free of any sorrow. “I have faith.”

Raphael
wanted to touch the other man’s face, to trace his fingers along the curve of
that smile in a vain effort to understand how it was formed.
After
everything he had seen, how could he still cling to his faith?

After
everything I have done, how can I be worthy of such faith?

Brother
Francis twisted around and grabbed the edge of the chest. He pulled it closer
to him and fumbled with the lid. He took out a ragged scrap of parchment, and
rooting around inside the box, he located several shards of charcoal. “Do you
know much about the Muslim faith?” he asked as he smoothed the piece of
parchment flat. “Their holy book is called the
Qur’an
, and it contains a
list of the names of God. Ninety-nine of them, in fact. The Sultan, Al-Kamil,
told me about this when he and I met in Egypt. He is an incredible man, and to
this day, I wish the mean and petty differences of our cultures did not prevent
us from being better friends.” He sighed.

“I
was born in Acre,” Raphael said, “as was my mother and her mother.”

Brother
Francis eyed him. “And yet you are a Christian man?”

Raphael
struggled with his answer. “The only vows I have ever sworn — the only ones I
will ever keep — are those I swore to Athena Promachos.”

“‘She
who fights in the front line,’” Brother Francis said. “Those are hard vows to
keep.” He laughed. Not from a place of pity or arrogance, but from simple
clarity. “You may be a stronger man than I, Raphael of Acre,” he admitted.

He
showed Raphael the sheet. It was covered with a number of skewed lines of
Latin, and Raphael read a few: “
You are Good, all Good, supreme Good…
”

“It
is but a pittance,” Brother Francis explained. “A distraction, perhaps, from
what I am meant to be doing, but for some time, it has been something I have
been yearning to write. In fact, it is only now, meeting you again, that I
understand the source of this desire.” He turned the page over and, peering at
Raphael’s face for reference, quickly sketched a figure at the base of the
page. The man seemed to be lying on his back, looking up at the lines of text
over his head. He squinted at Raphael’s hat and shook his head, drawing instead
a peaked cap reminiscent of the style worn by Muslims. With a practiced twist
of his hand, he inscribed a letter rising from the figure’s mouth.

“Do
you know what this is?” he asked Raphael, pointing at the letter.

“The
tau,” Raphael said.

“Do
you know what it means?”

“I
have heard it is used to represent the Cross upon which Jesus died.”

“The
Cross upon which he was
resurrected
,” Brother Francis corrected him.
“Our lives are not spent waiting for death, but waiting for life.”

Raphael
acceded this interpretation could be equally valid, though the subtle
distinction was one that he would have to consider more fully. “I have brought
death to many,” he said quietly.

“And
have you not given others life?” Brother Francis asked.

Raphael
shrugged. “How can one ever atone for the other?”

 “Only
God can answer that question for you, Raphael of Acre,” Brother Francis said.
“But you have to let Him. You have to have faith that He will.”

Raphael
nodded, hearing the monk’s words. His mind struggled to accept them, to let
them sink into his heart where they might take root.

“Give
this to Brother Leo,” Brother Francis said, offering the page to Raphael. “Tell
him it is more important than any other legacy of mine.” His face tightened, a
brief spasm of pain that seemed to rise from nowhere and flee just as quickly.

“I
will,” Raphael said, accepting the page. He glanced at the words written on the
back page, the text that floated on the page over the prostrate figure. “‘May
God smile upon you and be merciful to you,’” he read aloud. “‘May God turn his
regard to you and give you peace.’”

Brother
Francis laid his hands in his lap and let out a long sigh as he closed his
eyes. “God has blessed my life — time and again — and I have not always been
able to see or appreciate it,” he said. His fingers twitched, and Raphael saw a
dark blossom growing in each of the monk’s palms. “But now, now I understand
it.”

He
groaned then, his body twitching under his robe, and then his back
straightened. His hands relaxed, his fingers uncurling, and in the center of
each palm was an unmistakable sign. He opened his eyes and gazed at Raphael.
“You are worthy of forgiveness,” he said reverently. “Your heart is stronger
than you know. Never stop loving them. That is the only way you can save them.
That is the only way.”