The Iron Tempest (39 page)

“I also know that the Lady Bradamant is in love with you and that you believe you’re in love with her.”

Rashid blushed, but mumbled that that, too, was probably altogether too well known.

“And I also know that you’ve promised her to become a Christian and that you’ve taken every opportunity to evade fulfilling your word.”

“That’s not true!”

“No? Then why’re you still a heathen Moslem? You put off putting your neck into Christ’s gentle yoke until you saw it was a matter of your own life at stake instead of something as relatively unimportant as poor Bradamant’s happiness.”

Rashid was about to protest this slander, but then recalled the promise he’d made when he thought he was drowning. How could the hermit know of such things? Was he in fact some kind of holy man? Or, worse yet, another wizard?

“Are you a holy man?” he asked.

“Of course,” the hermit replied. “What other reason could I possibly have for living this way?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re changing the subject. What we were talking about was how you ignored Christ’s invitation until you saw some immediate benefit to yourself—
then
you accepted it quickly enough, didn’t you, eh? You think He’s so naïve as to not notice the hypocrisy?”

“Better late than never, I suppose.”

“Better never than dishonestly,” replied the hermit. “See here, Rashid my boy, Christ wouldn’t deny anyone who calls on Him, whether it be sooner or later. Now that you’re out of all danger tell me: are you still as willing to honor your pledge to Bradamant?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

“All right, then, we’ll begin your education immediately.”

And, as good as his word, the old man fetched an enormous Bible, its leather boards soft and crumbling, its pages damp and mildewed, opened it and began the first of Rashid’s lessons.

It was a strange week or two that Rashid spent in the hermit’s company. Interspersed with his theological training were peculiarly exhilarating, disturbing revelations about his own future. He did not resent the time spent, for he believed the old man when he was told that his corporal rescue was as imminent as his spiritual one.

The son that he and Bradamant would eventually conceive, the hermit told him, would also be named Rashid—as his father and grandfather had been—and would so grow in strength, beauty and valor that he would be unanimously elected king by the Trojans. Already he would have won the title of marquis from Charlemagne, in whose service the young Rashid would fight the Longobards. As a reward for that victory, the emperor would grant him rule over that rich land, saying “
Este Signori qui.”
And from that moment all future generations would know that country as
Este
. The hermit told Rashid of the bright generations that would follow his son’s, of Azzi, of Alberti and Obici, on to Nicolo, Leonello, Borso, Ercole, Alfonso and finally, in the bright, distant future, the magnificent Hippolytus and Isabella. Rashid’s heart swelled like a balloon when heard of the grand, holy dynasty that would begin with Bradamant and himself. Out of either ignorance or guilelessness, however, he never thought to ask what awaited him personally: what his own fate might be. Or perhaps it was merely conceit. The old man, who knew perfectly well that the knight had only seven years of life remaining, took advantage of Rashid’s lack of curiosity and held his tongue.

Some weeks after Rashid had been thrown onto the African shore, he was astonished to see a ship sitting not far off the beach on which he had been thrown. At first he thought it had run aground on the same fatal rocks that had doomed his ship, but it was in fact anchored safely beyond them—he noticed with considerable relief—and was rocking under a gentle swell. As he came to the edge of the low cliff that overlooked the beach he saw a boat being lowered. By the time he had climbed down to the water, the boat had already made its way through the reef and was among the breakers that rolled onto the coarse sand. As soon as the water was shallow enough, the oars were shipped and its passengers jumped into the hip-deep surf. There were four men and Rashid recognized at least two of them immediately.

“Roland!” he cried, wading out to meet them. “Renaud!”

“Good heavens!” cried the former. “What in the world are you doing here?”

Rashid quickly explained the circumstances of his shipwreck. “I’ve been waiting here ever since for a ship to come by,” he finished. “And you? What brings you here, of all places?”

“That’s told easily enough. I and these fellows here’ve just been in a great battle with Agramant and his unholy allies, Gradasso and Sobrino. We finally managed to defeat them at Lipadusa. Both Agramant and Gradasso are dead—”

“The king is dead?”

“Yes, but Brandimart is dead, too, killed by Gradasso’s own hand.”

“And Sobrino, then?”

“You’ll find that out soon enough.”

“Who’s this?” asked one of the other two men, who had in the meantime dragged the boat onto the beach well above the tide line.

“Sir Rashid,” replied Roland. “One of the finest knights in the world, even if he is a pagan.”

“That’s not entirely true any longer,” said Rashid, modestly.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” said the third knight, extending his hand, which Rashid grasped warmly. He noticed that the man’s other arm was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage. “My name’s Oliver, Marquis of Burgundy, and this just coming up here is Sobrino, a heathen king but a fine fellow nevertheless. Perhaps you know him, being a pagan yourself?”

“You really are the great Rashid?” Sobrino asked, taking one of Rashid’s hands in both of his. “This is indeed an honor!”

“Thank you, my lord,” Rashid said, “but I’d better explain that I’ve renounced Moslem.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s something of a long story and it won’t gain anything by being related while you’re soaking wet and cold. Besides, I’m just as curious to learn what the four of you are doing here.”

“That’s easy enough,” said Oliver. “Got a lance-point through the old bicep here and it’s turned a bit funny. Couldn’t be helped. Angoulaffre the Giant’s damned unchivalrous with his weapon, flinging about all willy-nilly. Roland said he’d heard of a hermit living somewhere along the coast here who could cure me. So here we are.”

“I know just the man you need,” replied Rashid. “In fact, he’s the very one I’m taking you to. While he’s getting you fixed up, we can bring each other up to date.”

This was perfectly agreeable, so the five men clambered up the cliff (Oliver with the help of his friends, of course) and followed the trail to the hermit’s cave.

The old man did not seem particularly surprised at the appearance of the men and even had food and drink waiting for them, as though they had been invited guests. He welcomed the newcomers warmly, blessing them and fussing like a grandmother. He asked them a hundred questions so rapidly that no one had time to answer one before two more were out of his mouth; Rashid suspected that the hermit already knew all about the four men and that the questions were just a matter of form. Roland told the hermit about Oliver’s injury and that he had sustained it fighting for the Christian faith.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” the old man said soothingly. “Let me see the wound.”

Oliver removed his brunia and pulled off his undertunic. Renaud had to cut away the sleeve. The blood and pus had dried into the cloth and the pain of pulling it away would have been too excruciating for the man to bear. There was a hole completely through his upper arm, so large that any one of the men could have inserted his fist into it. The bone was not broken, but it had been chipped and perhaps even cracked. Infection had long since set in and the flesh surrounding the injury was the color and temperature of red hot iron, swollen to the same glossy tautness as a scarlet balloon. The ragged edges were already black with gangrene while blood, serum and pus drooled from hole. The stench was nauseating.

“I don’t see any real problem here,” the hermit said.

“You have medicines, then?” asked Roland.

“No, I don’t. I’m going up to my chapel to pray. That ought to be sufficient for something no worse than this.”

With that, he scuttled out of his cave and up the face of the bluff.

“Pray?” said the astonished Oliver. “He’s going to
pray?
Is that all he’s going to do?”

“Ha!” said Sobrino. “No wonder we’re able to dispatch so many Christians in battle, eh, Rashid? It’s not our swords that’re killing them, it’s their doctors!”

“Don’t look at me when you say that, my lord,” said Rashid. “I no longer follow Mahound.”

“That’s right, you did say something about that on the beach. Don’t tell me you’ve gone over to that cowardly faith?”

“Yes, Rashid,” said Roland, “you promised us an explanation.”

Rashid, blushing unaccountably, stammered out as coherently as he could the story of his promise to Lady Bradamant. He was honest enough to admit that he had done all he could to delay implementing his word, but had finally seen the light and had allowed the hermit—who was a powerfully holy man—to instruct him in the tenets of the Christian faith and had only the previous day been baptized by him.

“So you’re a
Christian
, by all that’s holy?” cried Sobrino.

“You must indeed be in love with my sister,” said Renaud.

“She’s a nice enough girl, I suppose,” Roland admitted, “but I can’t see going that far for her. She’s my cousin and I love her, of course, and all that sort of thing, but she’s a little, ah, rough, don’t you think? I can’t see her preferring knitting booties to lopping off heathen heads—no offense, your majesty.”

“None taken, I assure you.”

“I
can’t
explain it,” said Rashid. “It seems like a kind of compulsion—I mean, that to fall or not fall in love with her is no more my choice than, uh, this stone has any choice about whether to hit the earth when I drop it.”

“Well,” said Roland, “there’s no accounting for love. I’d be a hypocrite if I were to say otherwise for I’ve just had my own misadventure with a woman.”

“You?” said Renaud, “This is news to me. I thought you were immune to the fair sex.”

“I now doubt that anyone is. I might as well tell you the whole story—you’ll weasel it out of me eventually anyway and I might as well spare you the trouble. Some time ago, I fell in love with the daughter of the King of Cathay . . .”

“
Angelica?
” asked Sobrino. “Good heavens!”

“Yes, Angelica. Although I’d never met her or spoken so much as a single word to her, I knew that I loved her from the moment I first saw her. I followed her from one end of Europe to the other, like a lovesick puppy. One day, I completely lost track of her—it was as though she’d vanished from the face of the earth. Well, it turned out that she—who’d been wooed by the most famous kings and knights in all the world, to say nothing of myself—had fallen in love with a common Saracen soldier—I hesitate to say
knight
—of humble birth.”

“Oh, that
is
hard to believe!” cried Sobrino.

“I agree, but it’s true nevertheless. When I discovered that she’d not only
married
this commoner but had returned to Cathay and made him her king, I went mad. I ran into the forest, threw away my arms and armor, tore off my clothing and raged naked through the wild woods tearing up trees by their roots. For months I lived like the wild animals I fought with my bare hands.”

“It’s hard to imagine a woman
that
beautiful,” said Oliver while Rashid fidgeted nervously and hoped no one noticed his discomfiture.

“Then you’ve never seen our fabulous princess,” said Sobrino.

“You seem to have recovered well enough,” observed Renaud.

“Thanks only to cousin Astolph, who traveled to the moon where St. John himself presented him with the vial containing my lost wits.”

“Ah! I knew there’d be a simple explanation.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Sobrino suddenly, turning to Rashid. “If this holy man of yours can cure Oliver just by whispering in the ear of your God, then I’ll swear to your faith as well!”

“Taken!” cried Rashid, extending his hand. “I know you meant that rhetorically, but I’ll take you at your word.”

The king seemed a little shaken at the knight’s earnestness, but what else could he now do but agree? It would seem churlish to claim he had only been making a joke. He could hear the old man’s voice, drifting through the open mouth of the cave, wheedling a favor from his God like some street begger cajoling a stranger for a coin, and smiled.

“All right, then, it’s done!” he cried, taking Rashid’s hand. “If Oliver is cured of his wound by that old man’s whining, I’ll foreswear Mahound and ask to be received into your religion.”

“Excellent!”

“So tell me, Oliver,” Sobrino asked, “how
are
you feeling?”

“Not too bad.”

“Well, no—I mean, how’s your arm?”

“My arm? It seems fine, I suppose.”

“What do you mean, ‘fine’? Let me see it,” Sobrino said as he strode to Oliver’s side and grasped the wounded limb, raising it into the light. It should have been a cruelly painful thing to do, but Oliver only smiled.

“By all the prophets!” the king cried.

Rashid joined the others as they crowded around, but knew he was not going to be surprised. The horrible wound was little more than a puckered depression. The scarlet inflammation was no pinker than a sunburn and faded as he watched. There was no sign of the gangrene. And in just the few seconds he had been standing there he saw the pucker become a dimple and then smooth, tanned skin. Like spring grass, fine hairs were popping into place on the new flesh.

Sobrino dropped to his knees, his face as pale as suet. He clasped his hands together and raised them over his head.

“Yes! Yes!” he cried, tears pouring down his face. “I renounce Mahound and confess the living and powerful Christ!”

“Certainly,” said the hermit as he reentered his cave, “why not?”

To celebrate the double salvation—that of Oliver’s body and Sobrino’s soul—Roland sent Renaud back to the ship for bread, cheese, ham and wine. The hermit, so accustomed to a diet of fruit and water, was reluctant and even a little frightened of the endulgence, but at the urging of his new friends saw no moral reason for objection—the menu was, after all, not significantly different than that of the Last Supper, and the occasion was certainly more festive.