Order of Darkness Read online

  ‘Like me,’ she reminded him.

  ‘You are in service to a Christian lady,’ Peter avoided her challenge. ‘And anyway, I have seen that you are a good and loyal companion.’

  ‘Like the women of my race,’ she pressed. ‘Like the other infidels.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘We’ll know more when we have landed in the Holy Land.’

  Isolde gave a little shiver of joy. ‘I can’t imagine it.’

  Ishraq smiled at her. ‘Me neither.’

  In the morning, after breakfast, the two girls, with the hoods of their capes pulled forward for modesty, came out of the inn door and walked along the quayside to the ship that would take them south, down the coast to Bari. Luca and Brother Peter went with them, Brother Peter carrying the precious manuscripts stitched into packages of oiled sheepskin against the damp, his writing box strapped on his back. On the quayside, amid the ships returning from their dawn fishing voyages, Freize was loading the donkey and the five horses.

  The gangplank was wide and strong from the quayside onto the deck of the boat, and the first three horses went easily across the little bridge and into their stalls for the journey. Ishraq watched as the last horse, Brother Peter’s mount, jibbed at the gangplank and tried to back away. Freize put a hand on its neck and whispered to it, a few quiet words, and then unclipped the halter so the horse was quite free. Brother Peter exclaimed and looked around, ready to summon help to catch a loose horse, but Luca shook his head. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  For a moment the horse stood still, realising that it had been loosed, and then Freize touched its neck once more and turned his back on it, walking across the gangplank on his own. The horse pricked its ears forwards as it watched him, and then delicately followed, its hooves echoing on the wooden bridge. When it came freely onto the deck, Freize patted it with a few words of quiet praise, and then clipped the rope on again and led it into the stalls in the ship.

  ‘They love him,’ Luca remarked, coming beside the two young women. ‘They really do. All animals trust him. It’s a gift. It’s like St Francis of Assisi.’

  ‘Does he have a kitten in his pocket?’ Ishraq asked, making Luca laugh.

  ‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘I think he has been feeding a stray kitten and carrying it around,’ she said. ‘I moved his jacket from the dining room chair last night, and it squeaked.’

  Isolde laughed. ‘It’s a ginger kitten – he found it days ago. I didn’t know he still had it.’

  Freize came back off the boat. ‘There’s a little cabin and a cooking brazier,’ he told the girls. ‘You should be comfortable enough. And the weather is supposed to be good, and we will be there in a few hours. We should get into port at about dinner time.’

  ‘Shall we go aboard?’ Isolde asked Luca. The master was on the ship, shouting orders, the sailors ready to let go the ropes. The children of the crusade idly watched the preparations.

  ‘God bless them,’ Isolde said earnestly, one foot on the gangplank, her hand in Luca’s grasp. ‘And God bless you too, Luca. I will see you in Bari.’

  ‘In just a few days’ time,’ he said quietly to her. ‘It’s better that you travel like this, although I will miss you on the road. I won’t fail you. I shall see you there soon.’

  ‘Cast off!’ the master shouted. ‘All aboard!’

  Brother Peter handed his box of manuscripts and his precious writing case to Freize to take into the little cabin. Isolde, holding the broadsword, turned to go up the gangplank when she felt the quayside suddenly shake beneath her feet. For a moment she thought that a ship had knocked against the quay and shaken the great slabs of stone, and she put out her hand and grasped the gangplank’s end beam. But then the shake came again and a deep low rumble, a noise so massive and yet hushed that she snatched Ishraq’s hand for fear and looked around. At once there was an anxious slapping on the side of the quay as a thousand little waves rippled in, as if blown by a sudden gale, though the sea was flat calm.

  The children on the quayside jumped to their feet, as the ground shook beneath them, the younger ones cried out in fear. ‘Help me! Help me!’

  ‘What was that?’ Isolde asked. ‘Did you hear it? That terrible noise?’

  Ishraq shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Something strange.’

  ‘I know that my Redeemer lives!’ Johann called out. Everyone turned to look at him. He was quite undisturbed. He spread his arms and smiled. ‘Do you hear the voice of God? Do you feel the touch of His holy hand?’

  Luca stepped forwards to the girls. ‘Better go back to the inn . . .’ he started. ‘Something is wrong . . .’

  The great noise came again, like a groan, so deep and so close that they looked up at the clear sky though there were no thunderclouds, and down again to the sea which was stirred with quick little waves.

  ‘God is speaking to us!’ Johann called to his followers, his voice clear over their questions. ‘Can you hear Him? Can you hear Him speaking through earthquake, wind and fire? Blessed be His Name. He is calling us to His service! I can hear Him. I can hear Him!’

  ‘Hear Him!’ the children repeated, the volume of their voices swelling like a chorus. ‘Hear Him!’

  ‘Earthquake?’ Isolde asked. ‘He said: earthquake, wind and fire?’

  ‘We’d better wait at the inn,’ Ishraq said uneasily. ‘We’d better not get on the boat. We’d better get under cover. If a storm is coming . . .’

  Isolde turned with her, to go to the inn, when one of the children shouted, ‘Look! Look at that!’

  Everyone looked where the child was pointing, to the steps of the quay where the water was splashing over the lower steps in an anxious rapid rhythm. As they watched, they saw an extraordinary thing. The tide was going out, ebbing at extraordinary speed, rushing like a river in spate, faster than any tide could go. The wet step dried in the bright sunshine as the next step was laid bare. Then, as the water receded, the green weed of the step beneath came into view, and the step below that, all the way down to the floor of the harbour. Water was pouring off the steps like a sudden waterfall, steps that no-one had seen since they were built in ancient times were now suddenly dry and in the open air, and in the harbour bed the sea was flowing backwards, running away from the land, falling away from the walls so that the depths were revealing all the secrets and becoming dry land once more.

  It was a strange and hypnotic sight. Brother Peter joined the others as they crowded to the edge of the quay and gazed down as the water seeped away. The sea revealed more and more land as it crept further and further out. The horses on the deck neighed in terror as their boat grounded heavily on the harbour floor, other boats nearby hung on their ropes at the quayside wall or, further out in what had been deeper water, dropped and then rolled sideways as the sea fled away from them, leaving them abandoned and their anchors helplessly exposed, thrust naked into the silt – huge and heavy and useless.

  ‘And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided!’ Johann cried from the back of the crowd. There were screams of joy, and children crying with fear, as he walked through them all to stand on the brink of the quayside and look down into the harbour, where crabs were scuttling across the silt of the harbour floor and fish were slapping their tails in trapped pools of water. ‘And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided!’ he said again. ‘See – God has made the sea into dry land – just for us. This is the way to Jerusalem!’

  Isolde’s cold hand crept into Luca’s. ‘I’m afraid.’

  Luca was breathless with excitement. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t dream it could happen! He said it would happen but I couldn’t believe it.’

  Ishraq exchanged one frightened glance wi