Stormbringers (Order of Darkness) (9 page)

‘When you get there, you must go to the Church of St Paul and ask for the parish priest,’ Brother Peter told him. ‘He will tell you his name is Father Josef. You can give him this letter. He will send it on.’

Luca watched Brother Peter double-fold the letter, and light a taper at the dining room fire. From his little writing box, Brother Peter took a stick of sealing wax and held it to the flame, dripping the scarlet wax in three separate pools on the fold. While the wax was still warm and soft he took a sealing ring from a cord around his neck and pressed it into the hardening wax. It left the image that Luca had seen, tattooed on the arm of the man who had recruited him into the secret order. It was a drawing of a dragon eating its tail.

‘You will wait,’ Brother Peter told the round-eyed lad who looked at these preparations as a man might watch an alchemist make gold. ‘You will wait that night, and the next day. You will stay in the church house and they will give you food and a bed. In the evening you will go to the church again, see Father Josef and he will give you a letter to bring to me. You will take it, keep it safely, bring it to me without reading it. Do you understand?’

‘The boy can’t read,’ Freize said. ‘So you’re safe enough in that. Us servants know nothing. He won’t read your secrets, he would not dream of breaking your seal. But he understands what you’re saying. He’s a bright enough boy.’

Reluctantly, Brother Peter handed the letter to Luca, who paused for only a moment to study the seals and then passed it to the boy, who knuckled his forehead in a sort of rough salute and went out.

‘What does it mean?’ Luca asked. ‘That seal? I saw it on the arm of the man who recruited me to the order.’

‘It is the symbol of the order that you know as the Order of Darkness,’ Brother Peter replied quietly. He waited till the door had closed behind Freize and then he rolled up the sleeve of his robe to his shoulder and showed a faded version of the design, tattooed over his upper arm. He looked at Luca’s shocked face.

‘It’s pale, because I have worn it for so long,’ he said. ‘I entered the Order when I was younger than you. I swore to it heart and soul when I was little more than a boy.’

‘No-one has asked me to take the symbol on my body.’ Luca said uneasily. ‘I don’t know if I would.’

‘You’re an apprentice,’ Brother Peter replied. ‘When you have held enough inquiries, and learned enough, when you are wise enough and thoughtful enough: then they may invite you to join the Order.’

‘Who? Who will invite me?’

Brother Peter smiled. ‘It’s a secret order. Not even I know who serves in it. I report to Milord, and he reports to the Holy Father. I know you. I know two other inquirers that I have served with. I know no more than them. We look for the signs of God and Satan in the world and we warn of the end of days.’

‘And do we only defend?’ Luca asked shrewdly. ‘Or do we also attack?’

‘We do as we are commanded,’ Brother Peter said smoothly. ‘In defence or attack we are obedient to the Order.’

‘And the one that you call Milord – it was him who took me from my monastery to Castle Sant’ Angelo, who spoke to me, who gave me this mission and sent me to be trained?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he the commander of the Order?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know his name?’

In reply Brother Peter showed Luca the blank reports in his writing box that were already addressed, ready for dispatch. They all read only:

Urgent

‘No name?’

‘No name.’

‘He has no name but your letter will get to him? Just that? Just the seal of the dragon? It needs no name nor direction?’

‘It will get to him, if the boy gets it to Father Josef in Avezzano.’

‘This Father Josef – the parish priest of the Church of St Paul, Avezzano – he is of our Order?’

‘He’s not called Josef. And he’s not the parish priest of Avezzano. But yes, if the boy gets the letter to him, he will open it, see the sign of the Order, and he will get it to Milord. Without fail. None of us would fail to pass on a report. We never know how important a report might be. It could be news of the end itself.’

‘So if there is a man in a small town like Avezzano, whose name is not Josef, who knows the seal and knows where to take the letter, there may be many men, other men serving like him, all over Italy?’

‘Yes,’ Brother Peter admitted. ‘There are.’

‘All over France? All over Spain? All over Christendom?’

‘I don’t know how many,’ Brother Peter said cautiously. ‘I know of those I need to know, to get my reports to Milord, and to receive my orders from him. Every time I leave Rome on a new inquiry he tells me who I can rely on – in any direction. He tells me who to ask for at each church along the way.’

There was a tap on the door and Freize put his head inside. ‘He’s gone. I have sent him on my horse Rufino, who is a good horse, and he has promised to ride, take your letter, and wait for a reply, and then come back. It wasn’t easy to persuade him to go. Half the town swears that they will go on this crusade and he wanted to go too.’

Brother Peter rose. ‘He is sure of the church and who to ask for?’

‘Yes, and he will wait there for the reply from Rome.’

‘You have told him he must not fail?’

‘He’s a good lad. He’ll do his best. And Rufino is a good horse and can be trusted to find the way.’

‘Very well, you can go.’ Brother Peter released him; but Freize leaned on the door to look in at Luca.

‘In deep,’ was all he observed. ‘In very deep.’ And then he picked up the kitten and went from the room.

Inspired by Johann the Good, the people who had come into the little town for the market went back to their villages and farms and spoke of him to their friends and neighbours. Next day, hundreds more people came into Piccolo bringing food and wine and money for the Children’s Crusade, and to hear Johann preach. Once again he stood on the doorstep of the church and promised them all that if they would come with him to Jerusalem they would walk again with the people that they had loved and lost. These were people who had been orphaned young, who had lost their first-born children: when Johann spoke to them of the rising of the dead they wept as if for the first time. Isolde and Ishraq went to hear him preach, standing in the hot sun of the market square with the common people. Luca and Brother Peter stood inside the shadow of the door of the church with the priest and listened intently.

‘Come home,’ Johann said surprisingly to the crowd, who were all born and bred within about ten miles and whose homes were mostly unwelcoming hovels. ‘Come home to your real home. Come home to Jerusalem. Come home to Bethlehem.’ He seemed to look towards Ishraq who was dressed as modestly as a lady on a pilgrimage, her cape shielding her face, a gown down to her ankles, and strong riding boots hiding her brown feet with the silver rings on her toes. ‘Come home to Acre, those of you who were born with the taste of milk and honey. Come back to where your mother first opened her eyes. Come to your motherland.’

Ishraq swallowed and turned to look at Isolde. ‘Can he mean me?’ she whispered. ‘Does he really mean that Acre, the beautiful Arab city, is my true home?’

‘I can hear your mother calling you,’ he said simply. ‘I can hear her calling you from across the sea.’

A woman from the crowd called out: ‘I can hear her! I can hear Mama!’

‘When we get to Jerusalem and the Lord puts out his hand for us, that will be the end of sorrow, that will be the end of grieving. Then shall the orphan find his mother and the girl know her father.’ He glanced towards Ishraq. ‘Then shall the girl who has lived all her life among strangers be with her people again. You will be warmed by the sun that you saw first, when your eyes first opened. You will taste the fruits of your homeland.’

‘How can he know?’ Ishraq whispered to Isolde. ‘How can he know that I was born in Acre? How can he know that my mother promised me that one day we would go home? He
must
hear the voice of God. I have doubted him; but this must be a true revelation.’

Around the two young women, people were crying and pressing forward, asking the young man about their families; one woman begged him to tell her that her son, her lost son, was in heaven and she would see him again. He put out his hand so that they did not jostle him, and the people at the front of the crowd fell to their knees and linked arms before him as if he were an icon, to be carried through the crowd at shoulder height on a saint’s day.

‘Come with us,’ he said simply. ‘Come and see for yourself on that wonderful day of judgment when your children, your father and’ – his bright blue gaze went to Ishraq – ‘your mother takes your hand and welcomes you to your home.’

Ishraq stepped forwards as if she could not help herself, as if she were in a dream. ‘My father?’ she asked. ‘My mother?’

‘They are waiting for you,’ Johann said, speaking only to her with a quiet certainty which was far more convincing than if he had shouted, as most preachers did. ‘The ones that you loved and lost are waiting for you. The father whose name you don’t know, the mother who died without telling you. She will be there, she will tell you then. You will see them together and they will smile at you, their daughter. We will all rise up together.

‘Now,’ he said quietly. ‘I am going to confess and pray. God bless you.’

Without another word, he turned into the doorway of the church and Brother Peter and Luca stepped back for him, and the priest Father Benito went inside to kneel with this most surprising prophet. The priest unlocked the rood screen and took him inside, up to the very steps of the altar, where only those ordained by God might go, and they knelt down side by side, the village priest and the boy that he thought was a saint.

The girls found their way to Luca in the private dining room talking with Brother Peter. ‘We’ve decided, for sure,’ Isolde told him. ‘Ishraq is as convinced as I am. The prophet Johann has spoken to her too. We’re not going to Croatia. We’re not going to Hungary.’

Luca was not even surprised. ‘You’re going to Jerusalem? You’re certain? Both of you? You want to go with Johann?’ He looked at Ishraq. ‘You, of all people, want to join a Christian crusade?’

‘I have to,’ she said almost unwillingly. ‘I am convinced. At first I thought it was some kind of trick. I thought he might talk to people, to work out what to say to convince them, take a bit of gossip and twist it into a prediction so that it sounds like a foretelling. I’ve seen fortune-tellers and palmists and all sorts of saltimbancos work a crowd like that. It’s easy enough to do: you make a guess and when you strike lucky and someone cries, then you know that you’re on to something and you say more. But this is something different. I believe he has a vision. I believe he knows. He has said things to Isolde, and today he said things to me that no-one in this town knows. He spoke of me in a way that I don’t even acknowledge to myself. It’s not possible that it could be a lucky guess. I think he must have a vision. I think he sees true.’ She looked down, not meeting his questioning eyes, and cleared her throat.

‘He spoke of my mother,’ she said quietly. ‘She died without telling me the name of my father. She died speaking of Acre, her home, my birthplace. He knew that too.’

‘We believe he has a true vision,’ Luca confirmed. ‘Brother Peter and I have reported it to Rome. We’re waiting for the reply. And I have asked if we may go with him.’

‘You have?’ Isolde breathed.

‘He spoke to me too,’ Luca reminded her. ‘He spoke of my father, of his kidnap by the Ottoman slavers. Nobody knows about that but the people I have told: Freize and yourself, but no one else. Freize spoke of it once to Brother Peter, but no-one in this village knows anything about us but that we are travelling together on a pilgrimage, and that I am authorised by the Holy Father. He can have learned nothing else from kitchen-door gossip. So he must have some way of knowing about us that is not of this world. I have to assume that it is as he says – that he is guided by God.’

‘No questions?’ Ishraq asked him with a little smile. ‘Inquirer, I thought you always had questions. I thought you were a young man who could not help but question?’

‘I have many,’ Luca gave a little laugh. ‘Dozens. But from all I have seen, for the moment, I believe Johann. I take him on trust.’

‘I too,’ Brother Peter said. ‘The answer should come from Rome, the day after tomorrow. I think they will command us to go with the Children’s Crusade, and help them on their way.’

Ishraq’s eyes were shining. ‘He said that I should go home,’ she said. ‘I have never thought of the Holy Land as my home. I was taught to call Lucretili my home; but now, suddenly, everything looks different.’

‘You won’t be different?’ Isolde asked her, speaking almost shyly. ‘You won’t change with me? Even if you find your family in Acre?’

‘Never,’ Ishraq said simply. ‘But to be in my mother’s country and to hear her language! To feel the heat of the sun that she told me about! To look around and see people with skin the colour of mine wearing clothes like mine, to know that somewhere there is my family, my mother’s family. Perhaps even my father is there.’

‘He spoke to you as if you were a Christian and would see the Last Day like the rest of us,’ Brother Peter observed.

‘My mother would have said that we were all People of the Book,’ she replied. ‘We all worship the same god: Jews, Christians and Muslims. We all have the one god and we only have different prophets.’

‘Your mother would be very wrong,’ Brother Peter told her gently. ‘And what you say is heresy.’

She smiled at him. ‘My mother was a woman from Acre in a country where Jesus is honoured as a prophet but where they are certain he is not a god. She was with me in Granada, in a country of Christian, Jew and Muslim. I saw with my own eyes the synagogue next to the church next to the mosque, and the people working and reading and praying alongside each other. They called it the
Convivencia –
living alongside each other in harmony, whatever their beliefs. For the enemy is not another person who believes in a god, the enemy is ignorance and people who believe in nothing and care for nothing. You should know that by now, Brother Peter.’

Three days after they had sent the message to Rome, Freize, waiting outside the little church, saw his horse, Rufino, coming down the hill and through the main town gates. He called his name, and the horse put his head up and his ears forward at Freize’s voice, whinnying with pleasure, and went towards him.

Freize took the reins and led the horse down the steep steps to the quayside inn. In the stable yard he helped the weary lad from the saddle, took the sealed letter from him and tucked it inside his jerkin. ‘You’ve done well,’ he said to the lad. ‘And you’ve missed nothing here. There’s been a lot of praying and promising and some planning, but the Children’s Crusade is still in town and if your Ma will let you – and I would have thought she would forbid you – you can still march out with them. So go and get your dinner now, you’ve been a good boy.’ He dismissed the lad and turned to the horse.

‘Now, let’s settle you,’ he said tenderly to his horse, taking the reins and leading the tired animal into the stall himself. He took off the saddle and the bridle and rubbed the horse all over with a handful of straw, talking to him all the time, congratulating him on a long journey and promising a good rest. Gently, he slapped the horse’s tired muscles, and then brushed the patterned white, black and brown coat till it shone. When he had made sure that the animal had a small feed, with hay and water for the night, he lifted the ginger kitten from where she was sleeping in the manger, and went to the inn.

‘Here’s your reply,’ he said, handing the sealed letter to Luca, who was sitting in the dining room with Brother Peter. The two men had been studying prophecies together, from the manuscripts that they had brought with them in carefully rolled scrolls and a bound Bible spread out on the dining room table before them. In the seat by the window, catching the last of the evening light, the two girls were bent over their sewing, working in silence.

Luca broke the seals and spread out the letter on the table so that he and Brother Peter could read it together. Freize and the girls waited.

‘He says we can go,’ Luca announced breathlessly. ‘Milord says that we can go to Jerusalem with Johann.’

The two girls gripped each other’s hands.

‘He says that I must observe Johann’s preaching, and . . .’ He broke off, the excitement draining from his face. ‘He says I must watch him for heresy or crime, examine everything he says, and report it to the bishop, wherever we are, if I think he says something which is outside the Church’s teachings. I must question him for signs that he has made a pact with the Devil, and watch him for any ungodly acts. If I see anything suspicious, I must report him at once to the Church authorities and they will arrest him.’ He turned to Brother Peter. ‘That’s not an inquiry, that’s spying.’

‘No, see what Milord says.’ Brother Peter pointed to the letter. ‘It is part of our usual inquiry. We are to travel with him and look for the light of God in all that he does, ensure that his mission is a true one, watch him for any signs that he is a true prophet of the end of days. If we see any trickery or falsehood we are to observe it, and report it; but if we think he is hearing the voice of God and doing His bidding, we are to help him and guide him.

‘The Holy Father himself will send money and arms to help the children get to the Holy Land. He says that we are to guide them to Bari where he himself will see that there will be enough ships to take us to Rhodes. The Hospitallers will guide and guard us from there. It is their duty to guide pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Holy Father will warn them that greater numbers than they have ever seen before are coming – and then – who knows what the Hospitallers will do to guard this army of children?’

‘Does your lord not expect the sea to part for the children?’ Freize asked. ‘Surely that’s the plan? Why would you need ships? Why would you need the Hospitallers? Isn’t God going to part the oceans?’

Brother Peter looked up, irritated by the interruption and by Freize’s sarcastic tone. ‘God is providing for the children,’ he said. ‘If a miracle takes place we are to report it, of course.’

‘I won’t spy on him and I won’t entrap him,’ Luca stipulated.

Brother Peter shrugged. ‘You are to inquire,’ he said simply. ‘Look for God, look for Satan. What else have you been appointed to do?’

It was true that Luca had agreed to inquire into anything and everything. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We will look clear-sighted at whatever happens. I won’t entrap him, but I will watch him closely. I’ll tell Johann we will travel with him and pay for the ships.’

‘Does your lord send money for feeding the children?’ Freize asked dulcetly.

‘A letter for the priest, and for other religious houses along the way,’ Brother Peter answered, showing him the messages. ‘To tell them to prepare food and distribute it. His Holiness will see that they are reimbursed.’

‘I’ll take that to the church then,’ Freize said. ‘That’s probably more important than the protection of the Hospitallers, who are, if I hear truly, an odd bunch of men.’

‘They are knights devoted to the service of God and the guarding of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem,’ Brother Peter said firmly. ‘Whatever they do, they do it for the great cause of Christian victory in the Holy Land.’

‘Murderers, who have found a good excuse to wage war in the name of God,’ Freize said quietly, as he went out and closed the door on his own insubordination.

Luca found Johann sitting on a wooden mooring post on the quayside looking out to sea. ‘May I speak with you?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’ Johann smiled his sweet smile. ‘I was listening to the waves and wondering if I could hear God. But He will speak to me in His own time, not mine.’

‘I have written of you to Milord, the commander of our order, and he has spoken of you to the Holy Father.’

Johann nodded but did not seem particularly excited by the attention of the great men.

‘The Holy Father says that I am to guide you to Bari, further down the coast, where he will arrange for ships to take you and the children to Rhodes. From there, the Hospitallers will help you to Jerusalem.’

‘The Hospitallers? Who are they?’

Luca smiled at the boy’s ignorance. ‘Perhaps you won’t have heard of them in Switzerland? They’re an order of knights who help pilgrims to and from the Holy Land. They nurse people who fall sick, and support people on their way. They are soldiers too, they guard pilgrims against attack from the infidels. They are a powerful and mighty order and if you are under their protection you will be safe. They can protect you from attack, and can help you with food and medicine if it is needed. The Holy Land has been conquered by the infidels and sometimes they attack pilgrims. You will need a friend on the way. The Hospitallers will be your guardians.’

The boy took in the information but did not seem very impressed. ‘God will provide for us,’ he said. ‘He always has done. We need no help but His. And He is our friend. He is the only guardian we need.’

‘Yes,’ Luca agreed. ‘And perhaps this is His way to help you, with His Holy Order of Hospitallers. Will you let me guide you to Bari and we can all go on the ships that the Holy Father will send for us? It’s a long way to the Holy Land, and better for us all if there are good ships waiting for us and the Hospitallers to guard us.’

Johann looked surprised. ‘We are not to walk all the way? We are not to wait for the seas to part?’

‘Milord says that the Holy Father suggests this way. And he has sent me letters that we can show at holy houses, abbeys and monasteries all along the way, and at pilgrims’ houses, and they will feed the children.’

‘And so God provides,’ Johann observed. ‘As He promised He would. Are you coming with us all the way to Jerusalem, Luca Vero?’

‘I would like to do so, if you will allow it. I am travelling with a lady and her servant, and they would like to come too. I will bring my servant Freize and my clerk Brother Peter.’

‘Of course you can all come,’ Johann said. ‘If God has called you, you have to obey. Do you think He has called you? Or are you following the commands of man?’

‘I felt sure that you were speaking of me when you spoke of a fatherless boy,’ Luca said. He was shy, telling this youth of his deepest sorrow. ‘I am a man who lost both his father and mother when he was only a boy and I have never known where they are, nor even if they are alive or dead. I believed you when you said that I should see them in Jerusalem. Do you really think it is so?’

‘I know it is so,’ the boy said with quiet conviction.

‘Then I hope I can help you on the journey, for I am certain that it is my duty as their son that I should come with you.’

‘As you wish, Brother.’

‘And if you have any doubts about your calling,’ Luca said, feeling like a Judas, tempting the boy to betray himself. ‘Then you can tell me. I am not yet a priest – I was a novice when I was called from the monastery to serve in this way – but I can talk with you and advise you.’

‘I have no doubts,’ Johann said, gently smiling at him. ‘The doubts are all yours, Brother Luca. You doubted your calling to the monastery, and now you doubt your mission. You doubt your instructions, you doubt the lord of your order, and you doubt even the words you speak to me now. Don’t you think I can hear the lies on your tongue and see the doubts in your mind?’

Luca flushed at the boy’s insight. ‘I had no doubts when I heard you speak. I had no doubts then. My father was taken by the slavers when I was only fourteen. I long to see him again. My mother was taken too. Sometimes I dream of them and the childhood that I had with them. Sometimes even now I cannot bear that they are lost to me, cannot bear to think that they may be suffering. I was helpless to save them then, I am helpless now.’