The rain continued the next day. Gontran and Diaresso nonetheless offered to leave, but the family insisted via gesture that they stay—so long as they keep making music. This exhausted Gontran and Diaresso, but good guests must oblige their hosts, and vice-versa. Diaresso, tired out, asked Gontran to play the lute for a little, but the Frank had never touched such a complex device before, and found himself unable to produce even the simplest music. The strings stung his fingertips, and his dexterity was oafish in comparison to Diaresso’s. In contrast, Diaresso without effort produced quick clusters of perfect notes, all with the right rhythm and spirit. Nonetheless, because Gontran at least made an attempt to play for many hours, he managed to upgrade his musical skills from Uninitiate to Initiate (1/10). Diaresso was already a Master (8/10).
The following morning was cloudy but rainless. Always in Chaldía the clouds overhung everything, their dark bellies heavy with rain, though they rarely released it. Water droplets clung to the pine needles outside.
Gontran offered to pay the family a gold piece for their troubles, but they shoved the money back at him. This gesture confounded Gontran. How could anyone dislike money?
Diaresso and Gontran cleared the stones and boulders from the cave mouth and then climbed down over the rockslide with their horses back to the Satala road. Along the way, they passed another cave they had missed during the storm; it was full of sheep.
Gontran and Diaresso looked at each other as if to say: so that’s the family’s livelihood!
Still, it looked hard to raise sheep here. Almost nothing was flat, and pines and rocks covered the slopes and cliffs. Little grass could be found.
Back at the cave mouth, the family watched them, still singing Diaresso’s songs.
“Weren’t you a troubadour in Tomboutou?” Gontran said to Diaresso, as he waved back at them one last time.
“This word in your peculiar language I do not know,” Diaresso said. “It is not a Greek word. It is a Frankish word.”
“It means like a traveling singer-storyteller.”
“The djinn took me when I was a baby, and made me thus. For that is what I have always wished to be. We call such people djeli. But I was born into the noble class, so it went against the law for me to take up music. I belong to the House of Keita.”
“You were too busy living off your peasants and slaves.” Gontran shook his head. He was always jealous of those who were rich without working.
“We had no peasants or slaves,” Diaresso said. “We were the ones who worked our lands. That is why we fell behind in our payments. My father had borrowed when it rained too much or not at all, too early or too late. We could not pay our debts. And thus the greater nobles devoured the smaller, and my family was reduced to servitude.”
“Tell me about it.”
Shouts came from behind them, echoing across the green valleys and vertical cliffs. Diaresso and Gontran turned. The family was still standing at the cave, but they were yelling, jumping, waving their hands, and making strange gestures.
“What do they want?” he said.
“I do not know,” Diaresso said.
The family was making an ‘X’ sign with their arms and then pointing back the way Gontran and Diaresso had come—to Trebizond.
“They do not wish us to continue this way,” Diaresso said. “They wish us to return to Tarabizun.”
“You’re projecting,” Diaresso said. “Let’s go.”
He waved to the family, thanked them again, and then continued along the Satala road with Diaresso. But then the family’s son rushed down from the cave and barred the merchants’ way, pointing back the way they had come.
“Look, I get it,” Gontran said. “You don’t want us to go. But we don’t have much of a choice.”
“He is warning us,” Diaresso said. “There must be some danger up ahead.”
“It’s just some superstition,” Gontran said.
The boy continued pleading with them in his own language. He even found a stick and attempted to draw a picture in the mud, but the merchants could make no sense of it. After listening for a moment, Gontran rode past him. Diaresso apologized to the boy, then continued onward.
The boy broke his stick, kicked at his drawing, and returned to his family.
Before long, it began to drizzle. Then it was raining again. The road at first was a dirt path wide enough only for one horse, but soon it was so overgrown it could hardly be discerned. Pines encroached from every direction, and their prickly branches blocked Diaresso and Gontran. They needed to duck and weave in between the boughs, hacking through with their weapons, though this made little difference. Eventually they needed to dismount.
I hate Anatolia, Gontran thought.
“The people have left this place for far too long,” Diaresso said.
“Back in France—”
“Faransa again,” Diaresso said.
“Back in France, when I was a farmer, if you turned your back on the forest for even a moment, it would take all your farmland.” Gontran snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Then you’d have to spend months clearing it again.”
“The djinn of the wild forests brook no disrespect.”
Later—as Gontran was considering returning to Trebizond to accept Michele Cassios’s offer to captain the Paralos—they emerged into a marsh. It extended several miles in every direction to the forested mountains. The open space disturbed both merchants, since hiding would be difficult here, and the mud was so thick they were sinking up to their ankles. Several times the mud pulled off their sandals, forcing Gontran and Diaresso to go barefoot and store their shoes in their bags.
“What a miserable journey this is,” Diaresso said.
Gontran turned to him. “Hey, it can’t get worse, right?”
“Things can always get worse.”
It was impossible to continue without penetrating the marsh, though because the clouds hid the sun Diaresso and Gontran didn’t know if they were still heading south. To rest would have made them feel worse, since there was no shelter from the rain, and movement was the only thing keeping them warm. Gontran longed for the cave’s fire, while Diaresso continued to talk about how he should have been back in Trebizond with “that glorious woman.”
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When they were about halfway through the marsh, Gontran stumbled over something. He looked down.
Bones. A human skull. Femurs. Ribs. All mixed up. Bits of flesh and clothing still clung to them.
Gontran stepped back and crossed himself, then showed Diaresso, who scowled at the bones before saying a prayer in Arabic.
“It is a foul omen,” Diaresso said.
“You said it.”
“Perhaps we should—”
“I’m not turning back, not after coming this far.”
Gontran kept advancing even as the marsh grass thickened and rose into the sky. As before, Diaresso followed. Soon they were sinking to their knees before they plunged to their hips inside the disgusting bog. The horses struggled and whinnied. Diaresso swore in his language while Gontran groaned. Just as the Frank was about to admit defeat, something grumbled in the distance. The sound was loud and deep, trembling in the mud and rain puddles.
Before the merchants could react, the horses bolted. Gontran and Diaresso tried to stop them, but the merchants fell into the mud and almost drowned, the one pulling the other to safety. Drenched in filth, they sat on a grass bank, the rain falling on them, their reward gone, and the marsh rising around them, mosquitos buzzing in their faces.
“I’m sorry,” Gontran gasped. “You were right. We should have stayed in Trebizond.”
“Always you admit the truth when it is too late to make a difference,” Diaresso said. “Now we have lost the reward for which we have worked and risked our lives these past two weeks.”
“We’ll find the horses. We just need some rest.”
The grumble came again, closer this time.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Gontran whispered.
“None would any who have red blood flowing in their veins!”
Gontran withdrew his wet pistol-sword, while Diaresso pulled his crossbow from around his back and armed it. They peered into the marsh, aiming their weapons here and there, listening. Minutes passed. Then, just as Gontran was about to propose that they look for their horses, something large and muscular wrapped around his legs. He looked down. An enormous mud tube had seized him. Too frightened to shout, he tried to stab it with his pistol-sword, but it squeezed him so hard that he dropped the weapon, his bones straining like they were about to break. As the groaning tube lifted him into the air—it was as long and broad as a tree trunk—Diaresso, eyes wide, took aim with his crossbow, but another tube knocked him away and held him face-down into the muck, where he struggled helplessly.
The tube lifted Gontran high above the marsh grass. Below him a red gaping maw full of sharp teeth rose from the mud. It was the size of the Paralos. He was moments from passing out in terror, but something nearby was galloping. One of Trebizond’s Turkish guards was on a horse, aiming his bow at the monster. An arrow was loosed; it whistled through the air and sank into the tentacle ensnaring Gontran’s legs. Blood burst from the flesh, splattering Gontran’s face. Groaning, the monster dropped him, and he fell into the mud beside Diaresso—who freed himself and gasped for breath as the monster lifted its tentacles and hurled them at the guard.
Gontran and Diaresso looked at each other as if to say: “Can you believe this?” Then they searched the muck for their weapons. Finding his pistol-sword, Gontran lunged toward the creature’s main bulb, stabbed it, then carved deep into its flesh. The monster shuddered and cried, the red maw in the mud facing him again. Diaresso shot it with his crossbow, then slung the weapon over his back, drew his scimitar, and chopped off a tentacle that sought to strangle him. Red blood gushed from the wound. Then the guard withdrew a small clay pot from his pocket and hurled it into the maw. The pot shattered, and flames engulfed the beast’s insides. It screamed as it withdrew into the muck, dragging its limp tentacles and disappearing.
The guard dismounted and helped Diaresso and Gontran to their feet, the two merchants shivering, soaked in rain, and covered in mud and blood from head to toe.
“Berkyaruq.” The guard pointed to himself. Then he pointed to where the monster had been. “Death worm. Very bad. We kill is good.”
Gontran nodded. “Thanks.”
Berkyaruq bared his teeth in a grin beneath his onion-shaped metal helmet. “It is a pleasure.”
Together they found the two missing horses, who had somehow fled to the marsh’s edge. Then they walked through the woods on the marsh’s far side until night fell, and the rain stopped. Finding what remained of the Satala road, they made camp not twenty paces away, and warmed themselves and dried their clothes using another one of Berkyaruq’s naphtha bombs, from a distance throwing it onto a pile of wet wood which—despite all the rain—burst into flames.
Only when they were sitting and eating the rations they had cooked in the fire did Gontran ask Berkyaruq why he had come.
“Berkyaruq find Roman army.” He hefted a leather bag slung over his shoulder. “I give message.”
“What message?” Gontran said.
Berkyaruq frowned. “Doux Bagrationi want peace.”
Gontran rolled his eyes. “Right. The guy wants to save his skin and screw everyone else.”
“Well—”
“Such are the ways of those who are already mad enough to seek great power in a society like this one.” Diaresso looked to the sky. Then he turned to Gontran. “Honor is unknown to those who live for lucre.”
Gontran smirked.
“My Lord Doux is not traitor,” Berkyaruq said. “Why fight all mighty Rome when victory cannot be?”
“Does Herakleia know?” Gontran said. “Or Alexios?”
“No,” Berkyaruq said.
“So only the doux and his friends know.”
“Yes.”
Diaresso stood. “They must be made aware of how their leader intends to break faith with them!”
Gontran looked at him. “Any excuse to go back, even after all we’ve been through. You want to hike through that marsh again? That thing—that death worm—it might still be out there.”
“I care for the people of Tarabizun.” Diaresso sat down. “Even if you do not.”
“You only care about Tamar.”
“What is so wrong about that? She is an exceptional person!”
“Tamar.” Berkyaruq leaned back and grinned. “Yes, Tamar is good.”
Both Gontran and Diaresso watched him for a moment.
“She is wonderful,” Berkyaruq added. “And very popular. She even visit the, how do you say in Roman, the masjid. The jami.”
“The mosque,” Diaresso said.
“Yes, thank you,” Berkyaruq said. “Christian, Muslim, Jew, she makes sure everyone have food every day. She is very popular with poor. Rich people don’t like her.”
“You see?” Diaresso turned to Gontran. “Everyone knows she is exceptional!”
“There’s plenty of great women like her—”
“Is that so? Allah forgive me, but I have not seen them of late. All I have seen this day is rain, mud, and horrors that would affright the devil himself! And you wish to continue along our fool’s errand to the south, though weeks of mud may lay ahead!”
“Yes,” Gontran said.
“This I cannot abide. I think I may take my horse and my share of the reward and to Tarabizun wend my way.”
Gontran gestured to him. “I’m not here to force anyone to do anything.”
“Oh, behold such nobility as the world has never seen! This you admit when I am two to three days from where I long to be, having departed at your insistence.”
“Diaresso—”
Berkyaruq laughed. “You are like husband and wife. Always fight.”
“I shall go in the morning.” Diaresso lay down and turned away. “A man can only bear so much nonsense."
“Be my guest,” Gontran said. “Although maybe you should jerk off before you go. It might just be your dick talking.”
“My penis does not speak! So be silent, thou giaour!”
Berkyaruq laughed. “Married couple.”
Gontran wanted to tell Berkyaruq to shut up, but he refrained since the man had saved their lives. The merchant also felt angry about this rescue. Berkyaruq reminded him of Alexios—as did Diaresso, who was right when he said that Gontran had abandoned his two new friends in Trebizond. He had always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. Once, he had even been an idealist like Herakleia. But now he was a pessimist. All he could do was look out for himself.
In the morning, the three of them were riding along the dirt path—marked by the occasional paving stone—once again. Diaresso had changed his mind about returning to Trebizond.
If I ask why, he might really go back, Gontran thought.
He looked at Diaresso, who sighed.
“Yes,” Diaresso said. “It was my penis.”
“Do you mean—”
“We shall speak no more of this. I remain true to my family.”
“They’ll be happy to hear it.”