CHAPTER 71
Usually Sofia rose with the sun, but it took a screeching gull at the window to wake her on this morning. She had been too exhausted last night even to look around her chamber; she did so now. The window opened onto a balcony, covered by a long lace curtain that trailed onto the coloured marble floor, reminding her of the wedding dress she had never worn. All the furnishings were made from the same rich, oily wood as Fabbro Bombelli’s banco, and carved in the most intricate shapes – Akka did not lack for labour; that was obvious. She wondered first what hope her mission had, and then what species of a sin it was to try to draw this prosperous realm into a distant war. Perhaps it was hypocrisy to pretend that she had fled for some reason other than saving her own skin.
Clothes had been laid out for her on a red cabinet beside the bed. Sofia didn’t care about fashion, but she knew the importance others placed on it. Donna Bombelli, and Levi, too, had often counselled that matters of form were not trivial in diplomacy. Sofia picked up first a headdress and veil, then the flowing, pale-coloured silks, looking at each with equal scepticism. She disliked the foreign style, but her old clothes had exhausted their powers of expansion.
‘Courage, Sofia,’ she told herself, and went to work. After she had donned the pieces in roughly the right order and the right way round, she stepped in front of the long mirror – she hadn’t seen one since Ariminum – to examine herself. The change just a few weeks had wrought elicited an involuntary gasp. No silks, however flowing, could conceal her condition now.
Plaintive bird cries drew her away from her terrifying reflection and she pulled the curtain aside and looked upon Akka, its bay, its churches, its high walls … The city was built from a pale yellow stone that intensified and reflected the sea’s harsh light into nooks and alleyways, places that ought to be veiled in a decent darkness. Rather than tolling bells, a clacking like an army of crickets sprang up from the white-domed churches, calling the Marian faithful to prayer.
Unlike Ariminum’s cramped but efficiently organised harbour, Akka’s chaotic sprawl had room to expand indefinitely. Some of the ships were fat-bottomed merchant haulers along the lines of Ezra’s old cog but there were strange small galleys with protruding mizzens and narrow hulls that narrowed into dangerously long bowsprits. With their slanted lanteen sails, they looked fast and predatory besides the staid Europan boats. Smaller vessels along similar lines, flimsy but elegant, manoeuvred among them like swallows around towers, and little tugs towed heavier ships into their allotted places like boys leading truculent bulls around. There were a few galleys in the Tancred’s class, though not quite as big; they docked further out and small skiffs ferried their passengers to and from shore. Akka had been the Oltremarine Empire’s temporary capital, until they abandoned all pretence of rebuilding Jerusalem and that status became official. As the Oltremarines started serving their own interests and not Europa’s, Akka blossomed like a deep-smelling steam-house orchid.
Sofia opened the door and found a blank-faced Ebionite servant standing there. As he silently bowed, she wondered if he had been there all night. She walked down the winding marble staircase, feeling the cool stone through her silk slippers, into a long, spacious corridor that felt more like a crypt. The walls were decorated with geometric patterns, interrupted intermittently by huge slabs of marble that rippled with dark veins like a shroud. On slender plinths in the middle of these slabs stood white ovals that Sofia at first assumed were marble portrait busts. It was only as she came closer that she realised with a sudden chill what they were: this was an Ancestor Room. The Akkans had preserved traditions that had long since died out in Etruria. The rows of peaceful faces looking down were the death-masks of Queen Catrina’s predecessors. The names and dates inscribed beside bold Etruscan mottos on the plinths were unnecessary: the progression was obvious.
The men, to begin with, were muscular, brutish Normans, with scars and broken jaws and a commanding intensity that survived even sudden death. The women were Ebionites with aquiline noses and docile, intelligent expressions: slaves with haunted, youth-frozen faces who had lived hard lives quickly. As Sofia progressed through the generations, she saw the ruder, softer characteristics being weaned out: the men became less brutish and died younger while the women became less docile and lived longer. They gradually mingled to the type Sofia had seen perfected last night in the cold, superior face of Queen Catrina. This panoply of ghosts had probably watched Catrina’s first uneven steps, had seen her fall down the stairs a dozen times. She must have learned early on that there was no sympathy from this audience. Now those same empty eyes glared coldly at Sofia, interrogating her motives.
She found Levi on a balcony, already eating. He was dressed like an Egyptian slave, and they teased each other about their costumes. The view from his floor was not as lofty as hers, but from it they could see the considerable breadth of Akka’s walls. Last night they had seen how the city was fortified against the desert; now they saw how the sea was kept at bay.
The walls were patrolled by the Lazars, who carried long, heavy axes, like the one Fulk had used to behead the Sicarii. The lighter battle axes were slung at their hips. In the light of day the Lazars looked more Ebionite than Europan; over the centuries their uniform had become a fusion of Occidental and Oriental that was offensive to all sensibilities.
Sofia looked back at her companion. ‘Arik couldn’t understand why the Sicarii didn’t cut your throat when they found you.’
‘You know me: my tongue’s my best weapon.’
‘You’re Ebionite, aren’t you, Levi?’
‘Me!’ Levi scoffed. ‘You clearly got too much sun out in the Sands.’
Sofia didn’t press him. She looked out at the sea. It was less pristine than it had appeared from her room: drifts of scum and rubbish sat on the water, swarming with hovering flies.
Levi stood up and leaned on the banister. ‘My mother taught me early to pretend I was born Marian. She crossed the Middle Sea on an Ariminumese galley, in chains, and pregnant with yours truly. My father was some dog of a slaver. A fisherman from Syracuse bought her and let her earn her freedom. All she ever wanted was to get back to this place – can you imagine? The day she died, I left for the mainland to join a Company. I didn’t want to be pushed around any more.’
‘You don’t have to keep pretending.’
‘Oh, I think I do. Ebionites are even less popular in Akka.’
‘This alliance was your idea.’
‘Rasenna’s my country now,’ he said testily. ‘I’m no more Ebionite than you.’
As they ate their breakfast of dates, nuts and bread with yogurt and sour milk, they watched a gang of local children playing on the walls. The knights ignored the children as they took turns diving fearlessly from the walls into the sea. Neither the height, nor the filthy water nor the jagged rocks below the surface bothered them, though they had to time their leaps with the tide’s flow to avoid breaking their necks.
A slave pounded his mace to announce the queen’s entry and Sofia and Levi rose as Catrina walked in, followed by her retinue of veiled beauties.
‘Good morning, your Majesty,’ said Levi. ‘We’re admiring your leapers.’
‘Don’t worry; it’s not terribly infectious,’ the queen said cheerfully, then laughed at Sofia’s and Levi’s confused reaction. ‘Oh, you meant the children! Leapers, lepers – I thought you meant the Lazars!’
‘All your knights are lepers?’ Sofia said in disbelief.
‘Yes indeed – but as I said, one has to make a special effort to catch it. The Lazars are very careful; they have their own baths and laundries. They’re as jealous of their disease as the rest of us are disgusted by it.’
‘If it’s not so contagious, how do they all come to have it?’
The queen’s smile thinned at Sofia’s question. ‘Etrurians never understand that holding a kingdom together in this land entails sacrifice. We are surrounded by a people who dream of pushing us into the sea. My ancestors devised a means to push back. The Ebionites dug up the old name of Sicarii to stupefy us with terror, so we responded in kind. The Sicarii consider themselves the only pure Ebionites. They are hypersensitive about cleanliness, so touching the dead is anathema to them. For such an enemy, lepers are the perfect foil.’
The queen threw herself onto a couch and took some grapes from one of the silent servants holding trays of fruit and sweetmeats. ‘But never mind that. Come, let me admire you, Contessa. Now: is that not a more becoming costume for you? And I love how you have made it your own. If any of my ladies were so pretty, I would allow them not to wear a veil too. Let the world see you; why not?’ The queen’s retinue’s obligatory tittering had a dangerous edge that reminded Sofia of the circling dogs in the desert.
Levi was eager to discuss the Etrurian situation, but the queen mocked his haste. ‘This is not Etruria, Podesta. There is nothing but time in Akka. I insist you allow yourselves to fully recuperate before we even think about the future.’
Levi, seeing she was used to having her way, gracefully acquiesced, suggesting instead that he explore the walls’ perimeter. Sofia accepted the queen’s advice, that she visit the markets, out of the abrasive sun.
The listless air in the bazaar did not stir even the pale sheets overhanging the narrow passages. Sofia had grown accustomed to checking the wind’s direction by its touch on her skin and its force by the moving clouds, but here there were no clouds, and her sweating skin detected no breeze. Perhaps the air had been fresh when the first Crusaders breathed it, but it was stale now; it was the sun that reigned over this captive city, bleaching the cobbled streets the colour of old bone.
A bawling donkey shoved its way through slaves carrying baskets on their heads; black-eyed children ran between their legs. The roar of the sea echoed over the crowd’s shouting. It would be easy to get lost here, Sofia thought. In Rasenna, before she had grown heavy, she could have climbed the walls to escape, but even walking exhausted her now. The queen was right; the desert had drained her more than she had realised.
Akka was less a city than a collection of warehouses, like a magnificent multiplication of those streets in Rasenna owned by the Wool Guild. In place of the damp, mannish odour of wool was the scent of spices and luxurious silks. Most of the merchants were Ebionites, and their customers were the senior servants of Akka’s noble houses. They emulated their mistresses’ haughty manners and haggled aggressively. Every servant was shadowed by a guard who carried their shopping in one hand while the other rested on a sword, lending weight to the haggling. The Akkan women preserved their pale Norman skin with masks and veils – or faked it with ash-coloured powder; Sofia, with her bandieratoro’s tan, looked more like an Ebionite. But all the women, high or low, Ebionite or Oltremarine, wore veils.
The language sounded comprehensible at first, but Sofia found herself more and more confused. A fishmonger advertised his wares with a sign of an open book; a tavern with an egg-timer; outside a candlemaker’s shop hung a birdcage, with a skeleton perched on a swing inside. Like Akka’s language, the skeleton was a mangled composite: a falcon’s streamlined ribcage, an owl’s porous skull, the dainty wings of a swallow. The connections were illogical, perverse and arbitrary. Clearly, there had been a realignment of meaning, and everyone but Sofia understood.
The street corners had niches like those found in Rasenna – but the statues within depicted a skeletal maiden in royal apparel instead of a generously smiling donna. Stacked below the niches were faded shards of plaster – gothic noses, broken lips and empty eyes that stared for ever. Sofia avoided looking at the shattered death masks; Akkans paused only to spit on them.
No one paid her much attention either, and when they did deign to notice her, they simply cried, ‘Move!’ If she hesitated, overzealous guards pushed her aside. After it happened once too often, Sofia pushed back, and sent a well-dressed elderly woman tumbling into a fruit stand. The lady’s red-faced guard quickly stepped in, shouting, ‘Ebionite whore!’
When Sofia grabbed his beard he grunted in surprise and reached for her face. Sofia tilted back, grabbed his thumb and, holding it, turned in a circle, at the end of which he was on his knees and Sofia behind him. She rammed her knee between his shoulder blades and he fell face-first to the ground.
The sympathies of the staring crowd were obvious and she quickly backed away, followed by a barrage of hurled insults and fruit. The guard picked himself up, even redder now, and started after her, with the crowd behind him.
In rising panic, Sofia turned a corner which led to an intersection: one path on the left was a dark tunnel leading downhill, the other led up – up, Sofia reasoned, to the palace. She had just turned right when a man stepped out of the shadows of the dark tunnel and called, ‘Contessa?’
Sofia was ready to fight, then she recognised the voice. ‘Fulk!’
‘This way.’ Fulk might be Grand Master of the Queen’s Guard, but his rank would not slow a mob in pursuit of what they imagined to be an uppity Ebionite whore. He led her through the dark alley to a sloped street which ran red with a stinking stream of blood. The stalls on either side were hung with the skinned carcases of lambs and calves and imbecilic-looking goat heads lazily attended by swarms of blood-drunk flies.
‘Nobody comes this way if they can avoid it,’ Fulk said. ‘What happened?’
‘He called me a whore,’ Sofia said.
‘And?’
‘That’s not sufficient explanation?’
‘Well, I’m not surprised – you’re not wearing a veil. None of the queen’s retinue warned you?’
‘It was the queen who suggested I go out.’
‘Huh,’ Fulk said, and quickened his pace.
Sofia sensed his annoyance. ‘I wanted to thank you for saving Levi yesterday.’
‘That was my duty,’ he snapped, then, more gently, ‘It requires no thanks.’
‘And this?’
‘My pleasure. We’ll have to go the long way back to the palace, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s all right. Is all the tour this scenic?’ she asked, swatting away the flies.
The Lazars protected Akka, but the citadel was the type one saw only in garrisoned towns: a thick-walled fortress built to separate the population from the soldiers. The main part was a tall hexagonal building standing on a forest of thick pillars, and beyond these pillars were several dark but airy chambers used for storage. The largest was set aside for Lazar training, and they spent an hour there watching the men spar under the seneschal’s instructions. Ignoring Sofia, Basilius asked Fulk if he’d care to go a few rounds. It was an intense exhibition, though Fulk was the superior fighter. Throughout it and afterwards, he kept the blank mask of his helmet down; only the redness about his eyes and the huskiness of his voice hinted at the corruption beneath. Though the chamber was cold and sparse, Sofia felt at home for the first time since she’d arrived in Akka.
Fulk was obviously proud of his men’s prowess. ‘Akka would perish without us. The Radinate may have been shattered, but the tribes remain.’
‘Do they coordinate?’
‘None of them trust each other enough for that, thankfully, and if any come close to settling their feuds, Queen Catrina knows how to get them bickering again.’
Sofia made no comment, reminded of the way the Families, and lately the Signoria, ran Rasenna. After the training session, Fulk took Sofia around the rest of the citadel. He showed her a workshop where coffins were stacked, to keep ahead of the ceaseless demand. The carpenters were either wounded, or cripples of various sorts. A younger Lazar read Scripture aloud as they worked.
‘These brothers are close to God. They can’t fight any more, but they can help the Order in other ways. It is a good way to prepare.’ One knight was clearly very ‘close to God’. He was not an old man, though he moved like one. His hands were horribly twisted, and shook with a kind of palsy. One foot was completely lame. The coffin he was making was nearly complete, but he frequently paused to catch his breath. Strangely, the atmosphere of the place was not morbid but peaceful. Cold air and the sound of running water came from a large open trapdoor, down which another advanced case was sweeping away the off-cuts and sawdust.
‘Standing armies cause problems,’ Sofia said, thinking of the Hawk’s Company back in Rasenna. ‘They’re expensive, they grow too powerful—’
‘—unless they’re kept apart from the society they protect.’
‘That’s obviously not a problem here,’ Sofia said, keeping a neutral tone. ‘How do you keep numbers up? Slaves? Prisoners?’
‘No one’s infected against their will.’
‘You’re all here voluntarily?’ Sofia said doubtfully. Surely no real man would bow his head to the axe so slavishly.
‘A few people get accidentally infected – we call them conscripts. Their parents bring them to the citadel in sealed coffins, while volunteers walk in. Within the order there’s no discrimination – we all leave in the same way, after all – but conscripts consider themselves unlucky.’
‘I bet.’
He saw Sofia’s look and shook his head. ‘Unlucky, because they could not voluntarily make the sacrifice that ennobles our souls even as it corrupts our bodies.’
‘That’s crazy!’
‘Chivalry must be dead in Etruria. A knight’s life is his lord’s, to spend at his discretion.’
Sofia remembered Arik’s dismissal of chivalry and snapped, ‘You call that living?’
‘We live through Purgatory,’ Fulk said calmly, ‘that we may reach Heaven sooner.’
The knight Sofia had been watching laid down his tools and called for another brother’s assistance, and as they lifted the coffin to the edge of the trapdoor, Sofia saw there was a slanted chute down into the fast-running water. The sick knight climbed in, lay back and crossed his arms over his chest. The other brother placed the lid on top, painted a black Herod’s Sword on it, then hammered it shut and pushed the coffin off.
The coffin slid neatly down into the darkness. A soft splash, and it was gone.
‘Where does it go?’
‘Out to sea.’
Sofia wanted to ask Fulk if he was a volunteer or a conscript, but the question seemed horribly indiscreet. Instead she said, ‘Aren’t you afraid?’
Under his big cloak, Fulk shrugged. ‘Death is the one journey all must take. As the Ebionites say, God wills it.’
When she returned to the palace Sofia found the queen conversing with Levi on the balcony. He was complimenting Akka’s defences.
‘And you, Contessa, how did you enjoy the market?’ the queen asked, sharing a look of amusement with her smiling retinue. Sofia decided to say nothing of the fracas, and instead remarked that she was surprised that Ebionite merchants were allowed access to the market.
‘Alas, Contessa, when the West abandoned us, we abandoned ourselves to the East.’
‘So that’s why there were no pigs in the butchers’ quarter?’
Levi looked at Sofia with reproach, but she was unapologetic; she was rattled, and she wanted to probe the queen’s controlled veneer.
But the queen gestured to the priestly figure hovering beside her. ‘Allow me to introduce the venerable Patriarch Chrysoberges. Perhaps you’ll enlighten our guest, your Beatitude?’
The patriarch was a ponderous specimen. His beard, a rusty column flecked with grey, was carved with straight edges like a topiary block. His sacerdotal vestments were an elegant but sun-faded black, and the tight layers wrapped around him like ivy. He was tall, but somewhat hunched, and Sofia thought that with his long sleeves, he made a great lugubrious T that might have slotted perfectly into the patterned wall behind him. His circular flat-topped hat trailed a flowing cloth that covered the sides of his head and reached to his shoulders. His face was a small, pale island where nervous eyes hid under cover of bushy eyebrows.
To hear him talk was as surprising as spring growth on an ancient tree – but talk he did, holding his psalter tightly with the white-knuckle grip of a strangler as he launched into a tedious account of their adoption of Ebionite dietary strictures: ‘Although the schismatics obviously miss the larger truth concerning the Virgin’s nature, they did preserve some salutary traditions that the Etrurian Curia, in its arrogance, has forgotten. With the light of truth to guide us, the Oltremarine Church has perfected the Marian Faith. In time …’
Levi’s polite smile concealed his boredom, but Sofia didn’t even bother to feign interest. Her eyes wandered out to the children, still diving from the walls. She knew why they never tired of the danger; she had once played similar games.
The queen noticed her indifference and interjected, ‘To put it simply, Contessa, we were outcasts when we came here. If our children ever returned to Etruria, they would be outcasts again.’
‘Are all those children Oltremarine?’ asked Sofia.
‘Of course,’ the queen laughed. ‘No Ebionites would dream of diving in.’
‘Some Ebionites have the courage of lions,’ Sofia said.
‘Or any other beast, I’m sure,’ the patriarch said coldly, annoyed at being interrupted mid-sermon.
‘It’s not for lack for courage,’ the queen said. ‘The Ebionites believe it would defile them. They call it Lordemare, the Sea of Filth. Admittedly, it is polluted from the royal slaughterhouse, the fish market and the refuse of the citadel’ – her eyes flashed – ‘but our children are made of sterner stuff.’
‘Besides,’ the patriarch said, ‘we don’t permit our children to play with slaves.’
The queen dismissed Chrysoberges and said, ‘You mustn’t think that all our prohibitions mean we don’t know how to put on a feast. You’ll see what we’re capable of tonight.’
Levi bowed. ‘You honour us, your Majesty.’
The queen’s ladies tittered and she hushed them. ‘Forgive me; it’s not for you. My Uncle Andronikos, Prince of Byzant, is coming to visit.’
After the queen retired, ‘to let them rest’, Levi turned to Sofia. ‘That’s why she didn’t want to talk. She was stalling.’