The Codex Lacrimae (15 page)

But, no — while grey and white plumed gulls cried nearby, circling overhead as a couple alit on the rail of the wrought-iron balcony, she just sat here and endured the slow agony of this semiformal dinner! Feeling as if she might scream inside —
Padre, where are you? I feel you so close!
— she focused again on the waters of the harbor and then looked around at the assembled diners.

So many smiles. Hiding so many different realities and agendas.

Her eyes drifted westward, and she felt some reassurance at the sight of the two three-masted Venetian round ships from her fleet, anchored a safe distance off the concrete wharf there.

The deeper hulls of the
Maritina
and
Calypso
had been unable to enter into the shallows of the inner harbor entrance as Clarinda was unsure what kind of reception to expect. She'd ordered the crews on both vessels to remain battle-ready. Then she, Pasquale, Alexander, Genevieve, and Kenezki rowed ashore to the city in only a small dinghy. This group was all that had set forth from Constantinople over a month ago. Clarinda had followed Urd's advice in bringing Alex, but also trusted her own initiative where Genevieve and Kenezki were concerned.  Some deeply buried instinct told her that they'd both be needed before her quest was over.

Following Kenezki's instructions, they'd maneuvered the dinghy to a jetty at the north of the port, the tiny vessel now jouncing softly against that half-ruined wharf.

Curiously, they'd been directed by a guardsman to dock close to a shipwrecked Genoese galley that had apparently been consumed by flames.

The fire had been recent. Smoke still rose lazily into the air from the broken main mast that tilted forward into tangled and charred rigging. To Clarinda's eyes, the splintered and tortured spars caused the ruined hulk to look like the blackened hand of some undersea monster reaching from the deeps to grasp the jetty.

As the group walked past the shipwreck, the reek of scorched caulking and pine emanated strongly. The members of her small party all stepped cautiously over the debris that lined the pier, but Clarinda felt a tremor pass through her as she did so.

How hot must that fire have been to make such a pyre
,
she wondered,
and why do I feel as if Padre was on that vessel?

Now, some two hours later, Clarinda found herself impatiently sitting cross-legged on the floor of Evremar's second-story, private porch of bleached sandstone.

Evremar of Choques was an enormous man, with a shock of orange hair that fell thinly in strands over a sunburned forehead; having no discernible throat, his triple chins folded in a fleshy heap onto his bulky torso, and his entire body seemed to press dangerously in the stomach area against a heavy white tunic and red robes. He lay almost on his side on the floor, propped up by gigantic satin pillows in the Roman style.

Clarinda thought it strange that the entire assemblage was eating on the floor, but grateful that her mat was on the portico in the sunshine. Here, at least, she'd a commanding view of the town and sea.

Evremar had explained the unusual arrangement by jokingly referring to the fact that he'd been hosting his two Arabic,
bedouin
guests — Fatima and Khalil — for three days now, and that the entire company should make them feel welcome by dining in what Evremar called the ‘desert style,' on the hastily matted and pillowed floor.

Clarinda sat on the side of the table at the opposite end of Evremar, between Pasquale and one of the
bedouin
guests, Fatima.

As the diners had various conversations, she picked absently at the salad in front of her, trying to curb a rising impatience, and waiting for the chance to direct the dinner conversation back to finding her father.

Would these distractions never end? Worse, when they did, would she like the answers about her father?

Further complicating all her thoughts were the dream visions that had increased since her meeting with Urd. Clarinda's developing Sight was intensifying, now limited neither to her sleeping hours nor to the battle near the subterranean pool.

All the visions seemed to be part of a future that she needed to understand. The sights, sounds, and people who appeared were so different from Clarinda's daily reality, she didn't know how to make any sense of what she was seeing.

The only consistent touchstone was the appearance of Servius Aurelius Santini in each vision, and
that
reality annoyed Clarinda.

She'd been angry at the youth since Urd had named him as her mysterious, dark-cloaked champion at the burning underground pool. She was thoroughly vexed by the possibility that
that
heroic knight (whom she'd become infatuated with over the past couple of months) might in reality be a bloodthirsty warrior and religious zealot. Clarinda couldn't help but see red whenever Aurelius appeared in her visions!

How could all of these emotions she felt have their source as just visions? Dreams that might or might not occur? The fact that Clarinda hadn't seen Urd nor any other of the Norns since Constantinople did nothing to improve her mood.

Stop it
,
she interrupted herself.
Even if the dreams are real, he's dead.

Even if Clarinda could find it in herself to
like
(let alone come to love) the young man in her dreams, she and the rest of the Mediterranean world knew there was no chance of anything occurring outside the realms of dreamtime because Servius Aurelius Santini had died in the fires of Mecina.

Stymied (and irritated) by a feeling of unrequited love that would've been impossible to explain to anyone, a fresh wave of annoyance heated her cheeks at finding her thoughts turning repeatedly to that young, infuriatingly good-looking man whom she'd never met.

Besides the fact that Aurelius was most likely dead, even while alive in her dreams he'd begun to irritate her for reasons that had nothing to do with his violent nature or religious calling. Clarinda never thought that jealousy would've been a possible emotion where the mystery knight was concerned, yet lately because of the appearance of another woman in her dreamscapes she'd felt just that!

It all started when she'd had a vision shortly after setting sail from Constantinople. In the dream, she'd been in a blizzard, making her way slowly through a wet, bone-chilling snowfall, clad in thick furs. After descending a drift of snow at almost a wading run, Clarinda found herself abruptly in a dark forest whose pine and maple trees provided cover from the storm.

Blood spatters were everywhere on the ground of the tree-line and it was as if she'd just stumbled into an area of a great battle.

Then she saw him.

As her eyes followed the trail of blood, Aurelius's form appeared through a tangle of juniper branches, speaking urgently to someone hidden from Clarinda's view. The youth leaned exhaustedly against an ancient oak tree, heaving from some exertion, with his head resting in the crook of his elbow and a bloodied sword in his right hand. Cadavers and skeletons were everywhere in the forest — cast on the ground, thrown into trees, and some shambling away to a greater darkness deeper in the wood. A wolf bounded into view, and passed out of sight behind a gigantic spruce.

Clarinda started to approach him but stopped short because she saw that the knight was speaking to another female.

The mystery woman wore an insulated hunter's outfit of forest green, with fitted pants tucked into heavy boots, and an ermine-lined hood pulled back to reveal fine blond-hair that swept diagonally across her tanned cheeks, accentuating high cheekbones and angular features.

Suddenly, like incandescent sparks, the woman's luminous, electric-blue eyes glanced upon Clarinda in the same instant that Clarinda sighted her — in a lightning flash, the female raised a yew bow and loosed an arrow right at her!

Feeling the arrow puncture her heavy robe, Clarinda awakened screaming from the dream, clutching at her abdomen as she lurched upward from the ship's cabin berth, heaving and sweating.

Surprised not to see arrows protruding from her side, fury replaced shock when she recalled the reaction on Aurelius's face. He'd whirled to look at her, and his features changed from surprised concern to complete relief when he saw that she got shot by the woman!

Clarinda flinched at the memory.

Was she to die in a snowstorm somewhere while Aurelius was courting someone else?

By God, if that's the case, I'll pull the arrow from my dying body and jab it into him instead!

She smiled at the thought of taking vengeance on the blond vixen, and felt it somehow strangely easier to think about Aurelius as an enemy than as a romantic interest. Well, if he were approving of her being shot, then he deserved whatever he had coming to him!

The smile faded, though, when her thoughts finally came full circle to think about the details of the attack — how different that vision had been from the dark pool where he'd risked his life to protect her from the other Hospitaller, the man Urd had called Morpeth!

She couldn't understand the dissonance between the two visions, and she'd no time to think about it anymore. There had been a change in the tone of voice of an important noble from Jerusalem that brought her attention fully back to the dinner conversation.

The Arabian woman, Fatima, had started to question her host about something, and all eyes at the table were now on her and, apparently, on Clarinda who sat next to her.

“Mistress Trevisan isn't the only person at this table looking for a family member,” Fatima said. “She started our meal asking about her father, and I have a similar problem to pose to you, Grand Master. The elders in our tribe tell me that my brother, Thaqib, is missing, and the story they tell is that the last time anybody saw him was in your company, along with two other western knights.”

The host of the banquet, Evremar of Choques, took a long moment to consider her with obvious irritation.

Guy of Lusignan, a large Frankish knight and recently deposed King of Jerusalem, had been given pride of place at the end of the table near Fatima, and next to Alexander Stratioticus, who sat directly across from the Arabic woman and Clarinda.

“I think that you should answer Lady Fatima's question,” Guy repeated, and Clarinda realized that she should have been paying closer attention. She glanced at the Arabian woman next to her, and saw that — though she was trying to control herself — Fatima's brown-skinned face was flushed a deeper brown, as if blood was rushing into her cheeks because of some grief or overwhelming fury.

“My brother's got a point, Evremar,” Aimery said, good-naturedly backhanding the Grand Master on the shoulder. Evremar scowled at the affront. “Wouldn't it be something,” the youthful prince continued, “if our little Levantine tour turned up some dirt in places like Caesarea? I'd hate to think that Evremar and Monachus here are doing things like kidnapping people!”

“It'd be hard to explain, Aimery,” Guy agreed, turning attention to his own plate of
tabbouleh
.
He took a bite and appeared to think about the matter as he chewed and swallowed. “You know, Brother,” he said after taking a sip of wine, “What if it's worse? What if the Grand Master and Archbishop here are working together against Jerusalem, and ransoming visitors who come through this town?”

Evremar grunted, but said nothing as he shoveled spoonfuls of
tabbouleh
into his mouth. Then, between bites, Clarinda made out what sounded like, “I told her and Khalil
[chomp]
that her brother Thaqib
[chomp]
disappeared shortly after
[chomp]
they left for their two-day jaunt into the wilderness...,” but, since Clarinda couldn't watch the man eat without getting queasy, she missed some parts of his response as he scraped his plate, finishing off the formerly mountainous pile of finely diced parsley, bulgur, mint, tomato, and onions, all of which was drenched with lemon juice.

With a piece of romaine lettuce still dangling from the corner of his thin lips, Evremar reached forward and popped an entire wrapped grape leaf roll into his mouth, washing it all down with a couple loud gulps of wine.

“Really, King Guy and Queen Sibylla,” the Grand Master said, directing the latter address to the regal-looking woman seated near him, “I can't be expected to keep track of every action that one of the locals take — if a
bedouin
raider like their brother Thaqib wants to wander into the desert in the middle of the night, so be it — I'll not stop him. If, however, said
bedouin
raider wants a writ-of-permission to sell his tribe's camels north of this city, then he should probably do what Fatima and Khalil are doing: accept an invitation to dinner and make a petition like everyone else.”

“Fatima's brother was in charge of the tribe,” Khalil said sternly. “We find it hard to believe that he just disappeared during the two days we were gone. Besides making our petition for that writ, we need more information about —”

“Yes, yes,” Evremar said dismissively, “we'll hear that petition later, Khalil. Perhaps this time, I'll even grant it,
if
you can prove that your tribe is not involved in the border raids we've been enduring lately...”