The Codex Lacrimae (43 page)

“
Grande, la vostra curiosità ci ha portato verso l'inferno,”
she muttered in irritation.

“That's a bit much,” Aurelius protested, rubbing his chest and continuing his survey of the surroundings. “My curiosity hasn't literally taken us to Hell. You heard Hav. He said we had to follow Old Nick to get that bit of coral, and then he can free the rest of the water elementals; if you want to blame somebody, blame the
fossegrim
,
not me.”

“Well, whoever's to blame, the fact remains that we're in Hel,” Clarinda stated, nodding toward the windows. “This is the high tower of Hela's Citadel. Urd took me here a couple times on our tours of the Nine Worlds.”

“Urd?” Aurelius asked. “Isn't she one of the Norns?”

“You know the myths?” Clarinda said, impressed. “I'm still learning, so I spend most of my time by a fiery pool reading about them.” She indicated one of the windows. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

They walked to the side of the great hall. Grey sunlight shone brilliantly through the high window, which stretched upwards as high as the tallest trees in the forest of Alfheim.

“None of this is going the way I expected,” Clarinda said softly. “Look down there.”

Shrieking winds drove a slanting snowfall that thrummed with rattling force against the lead-lined glass panes. Hundreds of feet beneath their vantage loomed only a dark abyss.

“We..we're...ne-ne-ne-never going to get out of he-he-here unless I-I-I can get the necklace to work!” Clarinda spoke fiercely, anger vying with incapacity as her teeth chattered. Aurelius turned from the window, about to make a wisecrack and saw that the girl was really cold, her lips starting to turn blue.

He removed his Hospitaller robe and cast it about her shoulders, holding the quarterstaff while she tried to fasten the cloth with a beautiful,
triquerta
brooch. She was too cold. The jewelry clattered to the floor. Aurelius picked it up, fastened the garment, and then held her badly shaking hands within his for a moment. She blushed as he looked at her.

“You wear
bella
gioielli
,
” he commented awkwardly.

“
Grazie
,
” she managed to say, “and, thank you for the cloak. It helps.” She gave him a curiously appraising look as he returned the quarterstaff to her.

He smiled, feeling a warmth at her words that surpassed the frosty air. “Perhaps we should start over,” he said. “My name is Servius Aurelius Santini. I take it from your accent that you're from Italy?”

“Venice,” she said. “I'm Clarinda.”

“Clarinda Trevisan,” he said, remembering, “if Old Nick was telling the truth?”

“He was.”

“Ah,” Aurelius mused. “I've heard of the Trevisans. You have more ships than most of the families sailing out of the
Arsenale
,
” he said, referring to the shipyard being constructed in that city of lagoons. “Are you part of the immediate family? a daughter? cousin?”

“Angelo was my father,” Clarinda said. “He died a few nights ago in Caesarea.”

“Oh, I'm sorry — my condolences to you,” Aurelius offered, while wondering at the strange turns this dream kept taking. He looked at Clarinda — the grief and anger in her eyes certainly seemed all too real. “
Ripose in pace
,
” he added, “May he rest in peace.”

“
Grazie
,
” she said softly.

“Wait. Did you say Caesarea? Is that what Old Nick was talking about — why he's so angry at you?”

“I thought — I hoped — that Evremar died the same night as my father. I...started a battle there with some friends. We won and got rid of Evremar, and I heard reports that he'd been taken in by the Archbishop there —”

“Monachus,” Aurelius interjected. “He's something else. I met him once a couple of years ago when he was making a tour of the military orders. I didn't like him.”

“Nor did I,” Clarinda said. “I suppose after what just happened, we know that Evremar survived the battle. Obviously, I mean, he's
il Diavolo
.
My father never stood a chance.”

Aurelius looked out the window at the blizzard. “I wonder if my father ever ran into yours?” he asked thoughtfully. Something about this place made him keep thinking about memories long buried. Perhaps it was the presence of a fellow Italian, or perhaps this was part of Hela's realm. Whatever the reason, he began to feel nostalgic and wistful about his family.

“Did you…why would your
padre
know mine?”

“My family sails, too. The Santinis?” He wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't know of his kin, but a strange look came into her eyes.

“Do you know them?” he asked.

“I...recently met a Paolo Santini,” Clarinda said.

“That's my brother!” Aurelius exclaimed.

“Really?” she said. “He was in Constantinople and said that his brother died in the Holy Land, at Mecina.”

“That's me!” Aurelius asserted, the excitement at odds with what he was saying. “They think I'm dead.”

“I see,” Clarinda said, but not seeing.

Silence fell for a moment.

“If I may ask, why?”

“Do they think I'm dead?”

“
Si
.
”

Aurelius paused, embarrassed again. Why did she have this effect on him? Everything seemed fine in his own mind when he thought about his past, but it sounded absurd when he tried explaining anything to her.

“I...after Mecina...I...I killed many people there. I didn't think that I could go back home, and then after I was taken in at this castle — the Krak des Chevaliers — I just kept putting off the idea.” He couldn't explain everything to her. Not now. “How was Paolo?”

“So, you are that Santini? The ‘Butcher of Mecina?'”

He winced, hurt flaring in his eyes, and turned from her to look out the window.

She almost reached a hand out to him, but instead tightened her grip on the quarterstaff and waited.

“Yes, and no,” he finally said, his voice emotional. “My brother — how was he?”

“He was brokering a deal for me to transport some goods.”

Aurelius flinched, the surprise helping him recover himself somewhat, and he looked at her curiously.

“Brokering?” he shook his head. “No, perhaps it's someone pretending that he's my brother. Paolo had no interest in the family business whatsoever.”

“He looked like you,” Clarinda said, “a bit older, though, and shorter.”

“Shorter? That could be him. When I left, I'd just passed him by a finger's breadth — but, business? No. That was always Roberto's and my interest.”

The merchant's daughter laughed. “
Your
interest? That's the last thing I expected to hear you say.”

“What?”

She waved a hand up and down at his fighting togs and weapons, then at his thick robe she was wearing. “All this — I can barely think of you as a monk, you're so...so, much a knight.”

Clarinda's face flamed crimson, the whiteness of the long gallery accentuating the reddening skin that flared down her throat. “I mean...how could so much change in five years?”

“Mecina.” He said simply.

“It's been five years since Mecina,” Clarinda said, “perhaps he learned the family business while you were gone.”

“No, no,” Aurelius said with certainty. “I volunteered to go on the pilgrimage so he could study at Bologna and become a cleric. Padre told him that if he really wanted to work in any of the royal courts, he'd need to study at university.” Aurelius hesitated. “That never made much sense to me, especially with his personality — he was always sneaking out of the house to meet girls and spend the night in town. It was strange when he said that he wanted to get into diplomacy at some level.”

Aurelius paused again, frowning at a memory — the moment of sea-change in their relationship, when Paolo told him that he'd been visited by an angel in the middle of the night and awakened wanting to be more like his devout brother.

“Didn't Saint Augustine get visited by an angel?” Paolo had asked, throwing pebbles into the ocean off the Sicilian coast.

“Not an angel, a child,” the thirteen-year-old Servius replied. “Augustine heard a child's voice over the wall in his back yard telling him, ‘
tolle
,
lege
' — ‘take it up, and read.' He went inside and found a passage in the Bible that changed his life.”

“
Correcto
.
That's what I want to do — change my life.”

Servius looked up from the manuscript he was reading, finally giving his full attention to his older brother. “
Veramente
,
Paolo? You're really going to go to university?”

Paolo shook his head. “Someday, but we've all got obligations. So, no. I won't be going to the university anytime soon. You heard
Padre
last night. I have to go with ‘Uncle Servius' on this pilgrimage.”

“I still don't get it. We'd never even heard of this ‘uncle' until last autumn,” Servius protested. “Why is
Padre
insisting that you go to the Holy Land?”

“It's the right thing to do,” Paolo said, bending over to find another pebble he could toss into the roaring waves. “Roberto will be heading to Genoa with
Padre
when you go to Calabria in June — they're trying to get support for another crusade, and Padre thinks that it's the right thing to do for the family and for the politics of it.”

“The politics of it?”

“
Certamente.
Think about it. If we've got a member of the family over in the Levant making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it'll play well when
Padre's
in Rome and Genoa.”

“I didn't think of that,” Servius said. “That might also be helpful for your future, if you really want to get retained at one of the royal courts someday.”

“That's what I'm thinking,” Paolo said. “I'll get the experience there first, and then go to university at Bologna after I get back.”

“But, you'll lose so much time,” Servius said, still frustrated because none of this made sense to him. “If I went, we'd have a member of the family there, and you could start at university this year. I've had so much training by Devrone and Brother Tomas that I should have my pick of monasteries when I get back.” He rolled the manuscript tightly and bound it with a ribbon. “That's the logic we should follow. I'll talk with
Padre
,
and then you'll talk with him about going to the university. I'll go, Paolo. You stay here.”

“Are you sure,
fratello
?” Paolo asked, surprise on his face.

“As you said, it's the right thing to do. We're family, and you and I are still going to do right by the family, only switching places. Besides, I want to see the Holy Land. I can't imagine how inspiring it must be to walk in Jerusalem.”

Paolo had hugged him hard, his eyes shining. “I'll never forget this, Servius —
grazie
,
grazie
.
It's like Saint Augustine with the child's voice; my life is completely going to change because of you doing this.”

“I hope so,
fratello
,
” Servius said, grinning. “No more late-night trips into town to meet girls. It looks like we'll both be taking vows to God.”

Paolo crossed himself. “I'm ready, thanks to you, Servius. Let's go talk to
Padre
.
He'll need to arrange things with Uncle Servius.”

“Maybe I'll start calling myself Aurelius to avoid confusion,” Servius said as they departed the beach.

“You're going to have an amazing time,” Paolo promised.

“I just wish I had a better feeling about this new ‘uncle' of ours,” Servius said. “He sure doesn't look like
Padre's
brother.”

“They say that every family has a black sheep,” Paolo replied. “Perhaps when you get to know him better on the voyage things will change… .”

Aurelius grimaced. Things had changed on that voyage. His relationship with ‘Uncle' Servius had culminated in the man's death at the Battle of Mecina, and Aurelius's forced change of identity led to a desperate fight for survival over the last five years in a foreign land.

Clarinda shivered again. It felt as if the cold was starting to slow the blood in her veins.

He noticed and moved closer to her. “Here, if you don't mind, let me put an arm around you while we walk...it might help a little.”