Stormbringers Read online

  ‘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,