The Necromancer's Grimoire Page 25

She blinked. DiMarco was staring at her, suspicion in his eyes.

  “You are not well practiced in the arts of deception,” he told her. “It may become a fatal weakness.”

  She put a hand to her head. Who ordered the attack on the Venetian strongholds? A strange relief informed her that the reis followed orders from the sultan, not his magus. And does the sultan bear a red thread at his throat, issuing orders that are not his own?

  She could not see the sultan, who was always engulfed in the necromancer’s dark cloud. There would be a crusade. This is why the Templars are here. She looked at DiMarco.

  “Where was Sir Calvin last night?”

  “As I said, he is tasked with recovering the Mandylion from the Turks.” DiMarco returned to the pile of straw that was his pallet.

  “What? He went into a mosque? To steal something?” Nadira let her breath out slowly. Her vision had been of Calvin later in the night, after his mission. She was amazed at the audacity of the Templars. She put a hand up to DiMarco for silence when he started to speak again. She found Calvin now, his quarry clutched to his chest under his shirt much as William carried the Grimoire. He was trapped by his wound and worried about the roving bands of janissaries. She tried to send a comforting tendril to him but his energies were heightened with pain and anxiety, yet also a shimmering triumph. He would feel or hear nothing through that wall of emotion.

  Nadira opened her eyes and touched the old knight beside her. He, too, had been bathed and his clothing changed. Montrose had been busy yesterday.

  She looked at DiMarco. “He will be found, but thankfully not by the janissaries. The city watch will find him and bring him to the prison on the agha’s orders. Soon. He will think he is to be executed and his treasure lost. I cannot reassure him if he will not let me in.” She saw him resist the Watch until he exhausted himself and dropped unconscious from loss of blood and the night’s exertions.

  DiMarco stretched his arms and legs. “The Templars are strange ones. I do not understand them. They claim to be pious but I have never seen any of them in prayer, nor have they crossed themselves,” he crossed himself. “I have not seen them kiss the cross or kneel.” He looked at her. “Have you?”

  She shook her head. She had been inside Corbett and had felt his intense love of God and the sincerity of his quest. Corbett knew what DiMarco did not about the nether realms, yet he, too, retained a fear of death and punishment that nearly drove him mad. It is what kept him from tasting the Hermetica. The Templars were exquisitely pious. She knew this. DiMarco would understand the fear but not the reasons. She met his eyes. “Do not doubt them,” she warned.

  DiMarco’s steady gaze told her that he did indeed.

  She said, “I think it is time for you to tell me what it was I said to the pope when I read the Hermetica to him and his cardinals.”

  DiMarco took a deep breath first and let it out slowly. He lowered his eyes and stared at his hands. “You spoke in a strange deep voice that was clearly not your own. You told him that Jesus was a beloved rabbi and had a wife and children as all good rabbanim do. You told the Holy Father that God looked down from heaven at him and his priests with sorrow and pity. You told him that the message of love and forgiveness, for which the blessed rabbi sacrificed his life, was twisted into a message of power and fear by the power brokers of the Vatican. The great rabbi’s message has been perverted by his followers.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I said that to the pope in Rome?”

  DiMarco continued as if each word pained him. “You spoke as though you were our Lord, chastising the cardinals and the pope for the system of indulgences and for their riches and earthly power. You reminded them about Our Lord’s admonition of poverty and service to the poor. Then one by one you spoke directly to each cardinal and finally to the holy father himself, and exposed their greatest and most secret sins as though you had been inside their hearts. You were the booming voice of God, and you enumerated their sins. Loudly.”

  “Ah,” she put her hand to her throat. “No wonder…”

  “And then you turned your wide dark eyes on me, Nadira the Reader.”

  She felt his memory. “What did I say to you, Senore?”

  Tears glistened in his eyes, then fell one by one down his wrinkled cheeks and into his white beard. “With the gentle voice of my savior, you told me I was damned to hell.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, then Nadira spoke gently to him, again, as though the old man were a child, “I cannot save the whole world, Senore.”

  He lowered his eyes. “I will be satisfied if you merely save me, Nadira Sultana.”

  She stared at him. After a long while she stood up and went to William. His eyes opened immediately when she touched the book in his arms. He released it to her and she padded her way silently across the cell to sit before DiMarco. “Kemal Reis will attack the cities that belong to Venice. These relics will not ward him away,” she said, “but the book tells me something else will.” Tell me what it is, she insisted. She waited. She pressed the covers with her hands, then opened it and touched her portrait on the third page. Tell me.

  The sky is blue, it replied. Nadira pressed her lips together in frustration.

  DiMarco asked softly. “What does it say we must do?”

  “It says the answer is obvious.” She turned to William. “Will, Sir Calvin will be arriving later this morning,” she paused. “On a stretcher.” She saw the young Templar fight the City Watch, saw him swing his heavy sword, saw him fall as his wounded leg trembled and betrayed him. She saw him disarmed…but not searched. The Mandylion was secure against his chest under his tunic. The Watch did not want to touch the knight’s blood, and he was covered in it. They took his sword and his dagger. She told him, “He will need help to clean his wounds and he will not permit me to touch him...because I am a woman.” She saw Calvin take her hand from his belt as she tried to help Montrose remove his breeches. Pious.

  William nodded, “I will help him.”

  “He will not want you to remove his clothing,” she warned. “But it can’t be helped. He must be tended or his wounds will fester. Do you understand?”

  William shook his head. “No, is he so pious that he cannot be naked? I have known priests like that.”

  “It is not that. He actually is very fastidious.” She remembered him naked in the baths in Istanbul. She marveled at how much she now knew about Calvin. If she permitted her mind to wander, it would bring her images of the knight and his past in Normandy, his present suffering and victory, and his future. She blinked. She saw him as a child, a squire, knighted in the church, inducted into the Templars in a secret ceremony shrouded even from the Grimoire, battling outlaws and the Moors in Spain. She shook her head to stop the flow of images.

  The Grimoire smiled at her. You have earned this power, it told her.

  She rubbed her eyes. “Yet you will not tell me what I want to know.”

  “What?” William thought she spoke to him.

  “Calvin. He carries something very precious to him beneath his clothing and he will fight you to keep it hidden. It is a cloth with the image of your God upon it. I am telling you because I do not want him to hurt you.”

  “He would hurt me?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “He is fierce now that he has it and he will defend it with his life. He is exhausted and in pain. You must understand that his mind has shut down, William, like a wounded animal. He will relinquish his treasure only to Corbett, and Corbett is not able to receive it. This will make him unreasonable. You are a friar. He may trust you to hold it while he is washed and his wounds bound. He has to trust you.” She hoped.

  “I am not a friar anymore,” he reminded her sadly. “He will never trust me again.”

  Nadira stopped. William was right. She considered putting a thread in Calvin and taking the Mandylion from him. She remembered Kemal and put that option away. Calvin would fight against her intrusion and her simple plan to have his body tended would
escalate into a battle to the death and both of them tainted with failure. She inhaled sharply. “You are a man of God whether you wear the habit or not. Just as he is.”

  He nodded, blinking. “But I have never tended wounds.”

  “No. The baron will do that. I need you to hold the cloth for him. Sit close beside him so he can see both you and the icon. We will try to ease his mind.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I hope so.” Nadira followed this possibility into the future. She saw Calvin struggle with Montrose as the baron tried to remove the Templar’s brigandine. She saw him kick and twist. He would not listen to reason. She sighed. “This will be difficult,” she told William. “But we can do it.”

  Calvin was brought into their cell exactly as she had foreseen. The striped block of light from the window was bright with a cloudless noon when the City Watch handed over the stretcher to the prison guards who then carried the injured Templar into their cell. The prison warden stood outside in the corridor. Nadira knew he objected to her being confined with the men, but the agha had commanded that they not be separated and that they be supplied with water and cloth, distilled wine and honey. She gave the warden nothing to complain about. She stared at him steadily until he reached for his prayer beads. He made a sign against the evil eye and left with his men.

  Nadira knelt beside Calvin. The knight’s eyes were wide with surprise as he looked at her. She smiled at him. “I am not who you expected to see in the Anemas prison, Sir Calvin.”

  “No, lady.” He turned his head and his eyes moved over the others and finally rested on Corbett.

  “He rests. We have tended his wounds. Now we must tend yours.” She waited until he slowly turned his head back to look at her again. “My lord Montrose will help you. You must permit this.”

  He nodded.

  “Give William the Mandylion to hold for you.”

  Calvin struggled to get up from the stretcher, an arm across his chest. Nadira backed away, nodding to Montrose. She had already warned him that Calvin would resist. The wounded Templar lurched to his feet and made for the open cell door, stumbling and dragging the bloodied leg. He gripped the bars with both hands to keep from falling. Montrose had Calvin in his arms with one swift movement. The baron twisted one of Calvin’s arms behind his back and pressed his face against the bars of the cell. The unequal struggle was pitiful and reminded Nadira of small boys catching pigeons and holding their fluttering bodies in their hands. She hovered close until Calvin’s fluttering ceased and he slumped panting against the bars, clearly exhausted. His wound had opened and fresh blood soaked the cloth of his breeches and ran into his boot.

  “We are not trying to take it away from you,” she assured him. “William will hold it only. It will never be gone from your sight,” she said gently, pitching her voice to soothe.

  Calvin’s jaw was tight as he clenched his teeth. “The leg only,” he said.

  She tried again. “You are bleeding from many wounds. They all must be cleaned or they will fester.”

  Calvin jerked his body backward against Montrose in an attempt to break his grip. The baron tightened his hold and gave Nadira a look that said she should hurry before Calvin injured himself further.

  “William has taken vows, as you have. He has tasted the Hermetica,” she reminded him in a soft voice. “He has been there. He has seen what you saw during that long night in Normandy when you were initiated into the brethren.” Nadira had seen the Templar’s visions when she touched him. Calvin had lain on the cold stone floor of the chapel for hours, waiting for God to speak to him. The Templar brothers had given him an elixir in his wine to aid in the communion. His visit with God had been less frightening than William’s, but changed his life just the same.

  Calvin stopped struggling. He sucked in a breath between his teeth and twisted his neck to look down at her, amazed that she knew this. Montrose watched her for the signal to release him. Not yet. She beckoned to William who appeared beside her.

  Nadira whispered, “He holds the necromancer’s Grimoire. We have been as successful as you have.” She signaled for William to show Calvin the book. “We have completed Sir Corbett’s quest. We have done his bidding, we are your brethren.” They waited. She tried one more argument. “You do not want to desecrate it with your blood.” She pointed toward his chest.

  Calvin relaxed slowly. He turned his head to look at Montrose. The baron glanced at Nadira and then slowly took his hands from the Templar. Calvin held tightly to the bars with one hand as the other touched his chest.

  “You must sit beside me,” he said to William.

  “I will.”

  “Close beside.”

  “Yes.”

  Calvin turned to Nadira. “And you will not touch me with those…things.”’

  She shook her head. “You see that even now I have not. I promise, though I could ease your pain with them if you would let me.”

  “No.”

  “Very well. I promise.”

  He nodded and moved his grip from the bars to the baron’s shoulder. Montrose helped him to return to the center of the room and sat him down carefully. Nadira moved to the open door and sat there politely facing into the corridor while Montrose worked behind her.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” She asked Calvin after several minutes. “How did you get into the Aya Sofya?” She paused, seeing him in her mind enter the mosque dressed as a Turk. “Or more importantly, how did you get out again?” She could play the event in her mind and see every detail, but she wanted Calvin distracted from his pain and for the others to hear. When there was no response she prompted again. “Tell us.”

  She heard him groan softly as Montrose removed his clothing. “I dressed myself as you see, though I had a turban at the time.” He explained, “The turban was removed by the city watch when they found me and searched me.” There was a sharp intake of breath.

  Nadira closed her eyes to see him. Montrose had removed his clothing and was gently wiping the blood from his skin. “Go on,” she said.

  “I knelt to pray with the other men.”

  “You know the custom? You speak Turkish? Arabic?” She put the heels of her hands to her eyes and saw his turban moving up and down on his knees in the orchestrated worship among the many faithful.

  “I studied Arabic for this mission.”

  “You are a remarkable man, Sir Calvin.” She saw a flash of his years of study and secret preparation for this moment. No wonder he struggled against their interference.

  William agreed. “Had you been found out, they would have killed you.”

  “Oh yes,” Calvin said, taking a slow breath between every sentence. “But I was in more danger of not finding the Mandylion. I had been told where to look, but it was difficult in that great space to see everything. After the sermon I pretended to pray privately in the place where it was hidden, looking for the markings I was told…” he stopped and Nadira heard him groan.

  Montrose said, “Nadira.”

  “No,” Calvin insisted in a tight voice. “Keep her away.”

  He ignored him. “Nadira come here.”

  She did. Calvin lay naked beneath a thin blanket, his bloody clothing and leather armor piled beside him. He stared up at the ceiling, his face gray with pain. William sat close beside his right arm holding a folded cloth reverently in his hands.

  Montrose’s eyes were serious. He lifted a corner of the blanket so she could see the wound in Calvin’s thigh.

  The knight raised his hand in her direction while the other covered his privates. “It will heal,” he said defensively, as though he thought she might pronounce his death when she saw it.

  She took in a long breath, remembering how she had felt the penetrating blow in her own leg last night.

  Montrose said, “It is all the way through.” He put his finger over the entry point behind Calvin’s knee where the wound gaped wide then moved across the corded muscle to the outer thigh near his hip to indicate the sma
ller exit. “I don’t see how this…” he paused, “there is no way to put wine or spirits deep inside. I can clean the outside only. The inside…” He shook his head. “You were stabbed with a sword?” He asked Calvin.

  “It was a knife.”

  “A long one,” Montrose murmured, measuring with his eyes.

  “He had a big knife, yes. We struggled. I had him on his back. I straddled him, my hands on his neck. I had disarmed him…I thought. He pulled that from his boot and stabbed me.”

  This must have happened after I left him. Nadira felt a twinge of guilt for leaving too soon. She did not touch him, but flattened her palm over the wound to read it. Through muscle and sinew only. Nothing vital had been pierced, though the severed sinews would not connect perfectly together again. This was a crippling wound. A thread of heat and light would help heal it, but she had promised not to touch him with her mind.

  “As I was making my way back to the caravanserai…” He took a breath. “I was accosted by… a group of janissaries.” He pushed the blanket down to cover his thigh, then stared up at the low ceiling of the cell. “It seems they overturned their cooking vats in the barracks.” He turned his head to look at William and reached out to touch the Mandylion. “There were six,” he murmured reverently. “Yet I live. My prayers were answered. I could not have been victorious against six without divine help.”

  Nadira put her hand to her mouth. Divine help, indeed. She wished she could have prevented the wound in his thigh.

  Montrose growled in admiration. “Six,” he said. “Impressive.”

  “One lives. The one with an extra knife hidden in his boot.” Calvin’s eyes glinted.

  “The Mandylion saved you?” DiMarco had been silent until now. His eyes followed Calvin’s hand as he stroked the cloth.

  Nadira did not try to correct him. She understood how inexplicable events became divine intervention to those who did not know the truth.

  “May I see it?” DiMarco asked.

  William looked at the Templar for permission. Calvin nodded. William stood and gently shook out the cloth. It was two arms’ lengths long and half as wide. In the center was a faint image of a bearded man’s head. DiMarco crossed himself. Even Montrose touched his forehead before faltering and putting his hand down. Nadira leaned closer to see as William moved the cloth to pick up the shaft of light from the high opening in the wall.