The Plague Knight and Other Stories Read online

  The eunuch opened his voluminous robe and brought out our swords and daggers. I winced, because I was afraid the seneschal would notice they were missing. But it was too late to fret about it now.

  "Exactly where is the Grail?" Bernardino asked, returning his dagger to its sheath.

  "I don't know," Ahmed said. "Wherever Ibrahim dropped it. You'll have to look. But don't worry, you'll be able to move around freely. Now stand still, I'm going to enchant you.” Raising his pudgy hands, he started muttering in a guttural tongue I'd never heard before.

  A spicy aroma filled my nostrils. My head swam, my vision blurred, and I had to struggle not to flinch away. When the dizziness abated, a chill spread over my skin like a coating of invisible rime.

  "Finished," Ahmed said.

  Trying to determine what he'd done, I glanced down at myself. Though I could still feel my gauntlets, my hands looked bare and black.

  Bernardino gasped. I turned. To all appearances, the Italian had become a Nubian harem guard, with a round belly, a beardless jaw, and a curved sword sticking through his sash.

  "Can we carry our shields?" I asked.

  "Yes," Ahmed said, "the illusion covers all, even defects in your speech. Your name is Selim"--he turned to Bernardino--"and you, my lord, are Mustafa."

  "Where are the real ones?" I asked.

  "Drugged," Ahmed replied, "though with luck they'll never realize it. They'll think they simply swilled too much pilfered wine." He crept to the doorway and peeked out. "Come on."

  A few minutes' walk brought us in sight of the bare chamber that separated the harem from the rest of the seraglio. Two janizary halberdiers guarded the near doorway and a pair of black eunuch spearmen stood watch by the far one. "Walk right past them," Ahmed whispered. "When you find the Grail, bring it to your quarters." He gripped our shoulders, then lumbered back the way we'd come.

  Even though we could see the illusions veiling our true appearances, it took an effort to advance without hesitation. Beside me, Bernardino trembled, either out of trepidation or because of the coldness that still lay upon our skins.

  A scuffing footfall and a kind of snort sounded behind me, where I knew no one had been a moment before. Startled, I almost spun around, an action that might well have aroused the sentinels' suspicion. But I caught myself in time, and when the noises didn't recur, I decided I'd only heard echoes of our own progress.

  One of the halberdiers nodded as we passed. I nodded back. Both Nubians smiled, and one wished us a good night. Bernardino replied in kind, and then we entered the harem.

  I realized I was holding my breath, and released it. And at that moment, an ironic fancy struck me. Some of the Grail heroes had visited castles full of captive maidens. In one respect, we were like them after all.

  Bernardino gazed at the choice of passageways before us. "Which way?" he whispered.

  I didn't know any better than he did, but if he wanted me to choose, I would. "This," I said, and led him to the right.

  We soon discovered that the harem was both extensive and as labyrinthine as the rest of the palace, one tiny chamber after another crammed with divans, gilded tapestries, jeweled pipes, flutes, harps, and bird cages hooded for the night. Interspersed with the apartments were sets of baths, steaming hamams adjoining cooler tepidaria. Most of the lamps had been extinguished and scarcely anyone was up and about, though occasionally we encountered a eunuch sentry on patrol.

  Bernardino and I prowled along, peering into doorways. Some of the odalisques slumbered twined together, some smiled into space with opium pills laid out beside them, and a few wept, or writhed in their sleep, their depilated bodies locked inside the same kinds of punishment devices I'd seen employed outside. Eventually we found a fully appointed torture chamber, where skinning cats, skull-splitters, and pincers hung on the walls, the atmosphere smelled of roast flesh, and the remains of a once-beautiful adolescent girl lay burned and broken on the ladder rack.

  Sickened, I looked about the room. No Grail. Bernardino gripped my forearm. "What was that?" he said.

  "What?" I asked, but as soon as I did, I heard it too: a series of rapid inhalations.

  It could have been something innocuous, an odalisque with a cold trying to clear her head. Instinct told me it wasn't. I hastened into the chamber and crouched behind the spiked chair. Bernardino did the same.

  Footsteps, soft as the one I'd heard outside the harem, padded up the corridor. Then something snuffled like a hound following a scent. My ears told me it was standing right in the doorway, yet I couldn't see it. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

  The phantom sniffed again. Certain that it smelled us and was about to attack, I eased my hand onto the hilt of my sword. Then it stalked on down the passage.

  "What was that?" Bernardino quavered.

  "I don't know," I said, "but it followed us in past the sentries."

  "What? If you knew that, why didn't you say something?"

  "Because I thought my ears were playing tricks on me." I nervously tried to loosen my sword in its scabbard. For a moment, it stuck, so I drew it to see why.

  When I did, Bernardino and I both stared in amazement. The blade was red from point to hilt. A coppery stink suffused the air.

  I picked up a rusty-stained towel and tried to wipe the weapon clean. Fresh blood oozed out of the steel like sweat seeping from a man's pores.

  Bernardino unsheathed his arms. They were gory as well. Then the invisible frost tingled off my skin, and suddenly my companion was a lean Italian again. I hastily checked my own appearance, and saw it had reverted to normal too.

  When I grasped what was happening, I started for the door, promising myself that if I survived, I'd take revenge.

  "Wait!" Bernardino wailed. "We can't walk around unmasked!"

  "We have to," I replied. "Don't you see? The eunuch conjured a demon to murder Ibrahim, and means for us to take the blame. Ahmed's differences with the sultan are common knowledge, and if his master turned up slain, the janizaries would ordinarily hold him responsible. But not if they find Christian men-at-arms with bloody swords lurking in the vicinity."

  "But we can tell them the truth!"

  "Apparently Ahmed's confident that they'll kill us without heeding. Perhaps he cast a spell that will ensure it. Since there's no unguarded way out of here, our only chance is to save Ibrahim, then throw ourselves on his mercy. Now come on!"

  We dashed on into the maze. At one point a guard stepped out of a doorway. "The sultan's in danger!" I cried. Snarling, he leveled his tasseled lance. I sprang at him, deflected his point with my shield, and punched him in the jaw. He fell unconscious.

  Bernardino and I ran on. Many of the chambers looked alike, and I began to fear that we'd taken a wrong turn and were coursing down corridors we'd traversed before. Then he gasped, "There!"

  I peered into the room he was facing. Beyond the threshold, Ibrahim and a doe-eyed Circassian odalisque sprawled on a divan gobbling cakes from a platter. Judging from their nudity, the damp spots on the cushions, and the wet footprints on the floor, they'd recently emerged from the baths behind the doorway in the far wall.

  The woman looked up and screamed.

  I stepped into the chamber, Bernardino a pace behind me. When I did, I noticed a silver chalice set with pearls lying on its side beneath a table. I should have known, I thought. It makes this whole absurd predicament absolutely perfect.

  "Your Majesty," I said, "you're in peril. Ahmed--"

  Ibrahim recoiled into a corner, dragging the odalisque with him, interposing her body between us. "Help!" he shrieked. "Assassins! Roman assassins!"

  As I opened my mouth to deny it, footsteps pounded up behind me. I wheeled, snatched out my bloody sword, hacked, and failed to connect.

  The spirit hissed like a colossal serpent. A blow slammed down on my shoulder. It didn't pierce my cuirass, but it staggered me.

  I heard the demon scramble to my left, darting around me to reach the sultan. I flung my
self back in its path and thrust, missing it again. Its counterstroke whistled at my head and I ducked beneath it.

  "Help me!" I shouted, and when Bernardino didn't respond, I shot a glance in his direction. He was gazing in the general direction of the divan and table, his blade still sheathed and an imbecilic simper on his face. Apparently fear of the demon had driven him mad.

  Which meant I'd have to fight the thing alone. And I couldn't defeat what I couldn't see.

  The devil battered me. Through instinct and luck, I blocked most of its blows, and my armor turned the rest. When its onslaught faltered, as every offense must sooner or later, I threw my shield at it, freeing my left hand, sprang backward, tore the odalisque out of Ibrahim's arms, punched him, gripped his forearm, and dragged him toward the opening in the back wall.

  Though I'd stunned him, he feebly squirmed and pummeled me. I scarcely noticed, because just then the spirit's footsteps rushed at me again. I slashed repeatedly, without pause. Shieldless and encumbered with a captive, I only had one hope of surviving the next several seconds, and that was to lash my sword around so fiercely that it would hold my opponent at bay.

  For a few precious moments, the demon hung back. Then it hissed and lunged. Something, a blade or talons, ripped my side.

  The wound blazed with pain. Certain I was about to collapse, I reeled, but when I did, I saw how far I’d retreated: the pool was only a few feet away. The realization heartened me, and I managed to throw Ibrahim and myself in.

  The hot water seared my face and the gash in my ribs. A cloud of blood, my own and the exudation from my sword, billowed around me. As I floundered to my feet, the demon plunged in after me.

  As I'd hoped, its legs poked holes in the water. Now that I could see where it was and read its stance, I might be able to destroy it.

  I feinted and cut. The demon dodged and riposted. I could tell what it was doing from the way it shifted its feet, and I expected to parry easily. Instead, the force of its swing almost knocked me down. For an instant, the world went black.

  Shocked, I realized I was nearly spent. If I didn't finish the battle quickly, the spirit would outlast me. Shouting, actually croaking, a war cry, I threw my sword at its head to distract it, then dove at it, terrified it would whip its arm in line to impale me. It didn't. I clinched, yanked out my dagger, and ripped at its kidney.

  Clawed hands scrabbled at my gorget, then locked around it. I kept stabbing. The steel collar groaned and began to crumple. Then the devil shrieked, released me, and fell back.

  It carried my dagger with it, lodged in its body, so I could tell it sank to the bottom. When I was certain it was going to stay there, I blundered to the side of the bath and clung there panting.

  Four eunuch warriors burst through the entry to the tepidarium, scimitars drawn. Ibrahim pointed at me. "Kill him!" he cried, and they charged.

  So much for the gratitude of madmen. Perhaps his wits were so addled that he didn't comprehend that I'd rescued him. I tried to flee, but I was too weak to drag myself out of the water.

  Bernardino stepped out of the shadows, his eyes closed like a sleepwalker's, the silver chalice clasped against his heart, and his right hand extended. When Ibrahim saw him, he froze, and the swordsmen stumbled to a halt.

  Bernardino kneeled beside the pool and laid his hand on Ibrahim's head. His fingers glowed. The sultan shuddered, and the scar on his brow faded and disappeared. Lines in his face vanished with it, until he almost seemed to be a different man. "Merciful Allah," he whispered, "what have I done?"

  Bernardino slumped to the floor, the cup still cradled against his breast. I started to fall backward. I fumbled at the edge of the hamam, but my hands were numb and wouldn't grip. Ibrahim caught me and held my head above water, and then I fainted.

  A stab of pain awoke me. When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the floor, and a eunuch physician was suturing my wound. Wishing that Bernardino had seen fit to heal me before he swooned, I lifted my head to see what was going on.

  Ahmed kneeled at his master's feet. Two janizaries held him immobile while a third looped a bowstring around his neck.

  Strangely, I no longer wished to watch him die. "Don't!" I wheezed.

  Ibrahim peered at me quizzically. "Weren't you trying to tell me that Ahmed sent the djinn? He must have, he's the only magician at court."

  "He did," I said. "And I don't claim to know why. But if you'd been in his place, and cared aught for the welfare of Attica, what might you have done?"

  The sultan scowled, and for a moment I feared I'd offended him. Then he said, "Perhaps you have a point." He turned to the janizaries. "Take him to his quarters. Guard him well, but don't mistreat him."

  I tumbled into unconsciousness again.

  In the week that followed, Ibrahim sent Ahmed into exile, then sailed for Anatolia to beg Orhan's forgiveness. When I felt hale enough to travel, Bernardino and I rode to the harbor. There he, Geoff, and I watched from the dock while our men readied the galley for departure. The air smelled of brine and fish, and gulls wheeled screeching overhead.

  Bernardino clearly had something on his mind. At last he said, "I don't quite know how to tell you this, but--"

  "You aren't coming with us," I said.

  He blinked. "No. I can't return to the life I led before. How did you know?"

  I grinned. "All that prayer and abstinence gave you away. What are you going to do?"

  "Wander a while. It will give me a chance to think. Eventually I might join the Franciscans."

  "Take this with you." I handed him the satchel containing the chalice. Geoff gaped, aghast.

  The Italian took the bag, then tried to give it back. "This belongs in Rome," he said.

  I shook my head. "If Urban got his hands on the Grail, he'd use it to enhance his prestige, and wring money out of his supporters. Coin to hire rutters to slaughter Clement's followers. I think you can put the cup to better use."

  After we said our farewells, Bernardino bade the equerry return the palfreys to the palace, then set off on foot. Soon he was out of sight. Geoff and I boarded, and the sailors cast off.

  As Athens dwindled behind us, the squire glowered, and stamped about the narrow confines of the deck. Finally I took pity on him. "Calm down," I said. "That wasn't the Grail."

  He snorted. "Don't even try."

  "It wasn't," I insisted. "The Grail isn't silver, it's made of some unearthly stuff Oberon carried out of Paradise. What's more, it isn't a chalice, it's the salver that held the Passover lamb at the Last Supper. People only think it's a cup because centuries ago, some poet said it was, and since trouveres and minnesingers ape one another, they've been getting it wrong ever since. But plenty of schoolmen know the truth, so I wouldn't care to try to palm a goblet off on Urban, would you?"

  Geoff raked his fingers through his straw-colored hair. "If that wasn't the Grail, how did it alter the bishop's character? How did it heal Ibrahim?"

  I shrugged. "I wish I knew. There's a mystery in it." Geoff scowled, pondering. Eventually he sighed and asked, "What's next for us?"

  "Ibrahim refilled my purse. Now I have to scour the tarnish off my name. A victory or two should do it. So I'll beg Urban to place me in the vanguard of his remaining forces. And if he won't, I'll seek an employer who will. Who knows, we might find a just cause to fight in. We did once or twice before.”

  Geoff said, "So long as the pay's good." The sail bellied, and the rowers shipped their oars.

  The Salamander

  By my reckoning, the arsonist might strike in any of fifteen places. It was sheer luck, if that's the right term, that I'd chosen to guard the right location.

  When it happened, it happened fast. One moment, I was prowling the cramped recesses of the tiring house of the Azure Swan Theater. Painted actors frantically changing costume squirmed past me glaring at the intruder blocking the way. Their ill will didn't bother me half as much as the flowery rhetoric being declaimed on stage. That night's play was The Bride and the Batt
le-axe, a tragedy that blends mawkish sentimentality with a flawless ignorance of life on the Isle of Lentilec. Suffering through a particularly lachrymose soliloquy, I wished that the theater would catch fire, just to terminate the performance.

  Try not to think things like that. One never knows what gods are listening.

  An instant later, I heard a boom. Some of the audience cried out, and the forty year-old ingénue ranting on stage faltered in mid-lament. Something began to hiss and crackle. I scrambled to the nearest of the rear-stage entrances, looked out, and saw that a patch of thatch on the roof of the left-hand gallery was burning.

  Then the straw above the royal family's empty box exploded into flame. The two fires raced along the roof like lovers rushing to embrace. At the same time, they oozed down the columns into the topmost of the three tiers of seats. I peered about, but could see no sign of the enemy I'd been hired to stop.

  Shrieking people shoved along the galleries toward the stairs. Others climbed over the railings and dropped into the cobbled courtyard, where they joined the stampede of groundlings driving toward the exit at the rear of the enclosure. In half a minute, the passage was jammed.

  It was plain that not everyone would make it out that way. There was a stage door in the back of the tiring house, but none of the audience had come in that way, nor was it visible from any of their vantage points, so none of them thought to use it.

  Abandoning my efforts to spot the incendiary, I ran forward past two wooden columns painted to resemble marble to the foot of the stage. Though the blaze had yet to descend past the highest gallery, I could already feel the heat. "This way!" I shouted. "There's another exit!"

  Nobody paid the least attention. Perhaps, between the roar of the fire and the panicky cries, no one heard.

  I jumped off the platform, grabbed a strapping, towheaded youth with bloodstained sleeves--a butcher's apprentice, I imagine--and tried to turn him around. "Come with me!" I said.

  He snarled and threw a roundhouse punch at my head. I ducked and hit him in the belly. He doubled over. I manhandled him toward the stage. "I'm trying to help you," I said. "There's another way out. Go behind the stage. The door will be on your right. Do you understand?" Evidently he did, because when I let him go, he clambered onto the proscenium.