Antichrist Read online

  “We can stop in Crane Bay if the rain bothers you,” he said to Hasan, and walked his horse out the gate; the Saracens drew back to let him through the narrow archway. The road wound off across the macchia toward the mashes near the sea. The wind made furrows in the tall, sere grass, and the air smelled of rain to come. Hasan jogged up to take his place on Frederick’s right.

  “Build a hunting lodge like the one at Lucera,” Hasan said.

  “No. This one’s different.” Twisting, he looked back at the lodge behind them—too small, too ugly, with its low walls and squat red keeps; wild hawks nested on the wide ledges of some windows, ignoring the men who lived and worked there, the dozens of trained falcons in the mews, the doves and pigeons kept for, the falcons’ food in the lower rooms. “I’ll show you the plan sometime.”

  “When are you going to build it?”

  “When I have the money and the leisure. Never. Come on.” He kicked Dragon into a lope.

  The first huge drops of rain splattered the horses’ necks, and the wind roared. Steadily the even rhythm of the horses’ hoofs increased. Dragon ducked his head—he hated being ridden into the rain. Reaching behind him, Frederick pulled his hood up and got it over his head, all that fur snug around his ears. They were coming up to the bridge, and the Saracens rearranged themselves into a file with him in the middle. Frederick reined his horse down a little. The thud of hoofs changed abruptly into a booming when Masuf rode onto the bridge, and Dragon nearly shied off.

  Over the low rail Frederick saw the clear stream beneath the bridge bubble with the rain, the pebbles on the bottom obscured by a thousand ripples. He looked up the sky and the rain got into his eyes and pelted on his cheeks. The rain was coming down harder, the drops smaller, stinging and cold. He shouted to Hasan and pointed across the marsh toward Crane Bay.

  Hasan nodded. They let the horses stretch out into a fast canter, keeping to the high side of the road. The macchia grass turned to the rougher, darker foliage of the marsh. Ahead, the road forked, the main branch keeping to the drier ground that headed for Barletta, and the small trail off half buried in marsh grass and weeds. Hasan yelled to Masuf to take the little trail. All the horses strained stubbornly toward the Barletta road; Frederick heard a whip hiss behind him, and he had to snap his rein to keep Dragon straight. The big horse settled sulkily into a cross-canter in retaliation. They raced beneath a row of cypresses and around the edge of a salt pond, while the wind lashed the rain against them like a Neil, and burst into the meadow behind Crane Bay. Frederick headed straight for the lean-to—he had no intention of walking through the heavy grass and getting his feet wet—and Hasan followed to hold his horse when he dismounted.

  “Hurry, it’s cold out here.” Frederick ducked under the eaves of the lean-to and into the dark beyond.

  He’d ordered this place built in his first year back from Germany, before he’d made the lodge out on the plain, and although this one stank and the floor was rotting, he still preferred coming here during a hunt to going all the way back to the other. In the dim light he stumbled over a stool, barked his shin, and nearly fell. Limping, he found a chair and sat down in it.

  “Fah,” Hasan said, stamping , in. “It’s solid mud out there. Shall I light lamps?”

  “Yes.” Frederick was rubbing his shin. “And get me something to drink.”

  The others came in—Ayub and Yusuf were teasing Masuf again; he’d forgotten something. Masuf was new and hadn’t learned all the rules and tricks yet, and he teased well. The others could drive him into fits in a matter of moments. Frederick stretched out in the chair, and without letting up his running chatter to Masuf, Ayub kicked a stool accurately over so that Frederick could put his feet on it.

  “The whole younger generation has no sense of the rightness of rules. Masuf, someday you’ll come to appreciate—”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Masuf flung off his cloak. “But not now, Ayub my uncle. No, I—” He took a splinter from Hasan and lit a small lamp. Simultaneously Hasan trimmed the bigger one in the back, and warm yellow light spread through the lean-to. Outside everything was gray and misty, and water ran in sheets off the eaves into the puddles in the mud below.

  “Masuf,” Hasan yelled. “Will you please pay attention and find the cups?” He sank down ,on, his, heels next to Frederick. “These boys refuse training, Lord. You must excuse Masuf his—”

  “Hasan,” Masuf said. “You are the kindest and most noble of instructors, the father of my devotion to the Emperor, and I would never consider saying anything against you. But.”

  Hasan had a wine cask and was working up the bung. “Yes, my child?”

  “Forget it.” Masuf opened the cabinet with the cups inside.

  Fredrick laughed. The lamplight made shadows along the far wall, past the rows of wine casks and the chests of clean clothes. “That peregrine is lovely, isn’t she?”

  “She’s huge.” Yusuf and Ayub sat down on the other side of him. Yusuf looked over his shoulder at Masuf, who had brought only one cup. “What are you doing, boy? Are we to drink out of our hands?”

  Masuf went back to the cabinet. “How many of you are breaking the law of God?”

  “Zeal,” Yusuf said. “Zeal as well. What a mix.”

  “All of us,” Ayub called. He sniffed the wine. “Ah. It’s the San Pietro again.”

  Dumping three of the wooden cups on the floor, Masuf handed the other to Hasan. “Listen to it rain.”

  “Don’t you drink, Masuf?” Frederick said.

  “Lord,” Hasan said, “he does nothing that fits a man, and all the things that fit a boy, whereby you can immediately tell that he is still a child. Deduction.” He raised one forefinger in the fabled gesture of the sage and dipped out a cupful of the wine, sipped it, and held it up to Frederick.

  “I do all the things that fit a true believer,” Masuf said. “None of those that fit a damned soul. Deduction.”

  “Ridiculous. Ridiculous.” Hasan filled a cup, dunked the tip of his little finger into the wine, and shook off a drop. “Boy, God said no man should touch a drop of wine. That drop.”

  Frederick said, “Am I a damned soul, Masuf?”

  “Of course.” Masuf looked mildly surprised. “You are an unbeliever, however wise and noble and kind and—”

  “Lovable,” Frederick murmured.

  Hasan shoved Masuf roughly. “Boy, you learned all your faith from books.”

  Ayub and Yusuf were drinking, their heads thrown back. Frederick listened a moment to the drumming of the rain on the roof and grinned. There was nothing better than this, to sit like this and talk and drink. Masuf said, “How else am I to learn faith except from wise men who write books?’

  Hasan laughed and clapped his hands. “That only shows your youth, boy, for hasn’t it been said that faith makes equal wisdom and folly?”

  “Just consider, Masuf,” Frederick said. “If the men who made books were all wise, none would try to make a law against drinking wine, because people will only break it, which weakens respect for the law.”

  Masuf frowned. “That law wasn’t written in a book but given to Mohammed by God Himself as revealed truth.”

  “Mohammed wasn’t hearing well that day,” Ayub said. “Here, Masuf, how can you condemn what you haven’t even tried?”

  “The drinking of wine leads to further wickedness,” Masuf said.

  “So does being born,” Hasan said. “Lord, are you—”

  “More.” Frederick handed him the cup. “What if everybody in Sicily grew nothing but oranges?”

  Ayub yelped. “Excellent.”

  Hasan gave Frederick his second cup of wine and dipped out another for himself. “Besides, Masuf, wine”—he flicked out a drop—“wine soothes the mind and induces it to deep thoughts, to self-discovery and meditation on many subjects.”

  “I’m sorry, Hasan, I was still contemplating oranges.” Masuf stretched out on the floor, grinning.

  Frederick said, “Well, Masuf, just think of
it this way. A rule against drinking is a small matter compared to a law against murder, isn’t it?”

  “All our transgressions are equally vile in the sight of God.”

  Hasan snorted. “By the Compassionate and Infinitely Loving God. What a tedious life you must live.”

  Ayub muttered, “I don’t notice us sneaking out at night into harems and dicing our days away.”

  “The point is,” Frederick said, “that if you break a small law and break it often, you won’t be tempted into one tremendous crime. Besides, just think, Masuf, what amazement we will cause, when, having sampled every conceivable vice and authored every conceivable sin, we return to righteousness. Think what models we will be to youth when we choose of our own will the path of right and good after exposing, ourselves to all possible corruption.”

  He gulped wine, and his head began to spin, and the flickering lamplight threw strange moving shapes before his eyes. “Hasan. This wine is strong.”

  “Well,” Masuf said, “when are you going to—”

  “Wait,” Hasan said. “Wait. We haven’t as yet investigated all the possibilities of sin.”

  Ayub laughed. “Don’t argue with them, Masuf, believe me. They transcend logic.”

  “God never really intended to outlaw wine,” Hasan said dreamily. “He just did it to keep up His credit in certain circles, but we know what He meant.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Ayub said.

  “Well, damn it,” Frederick said, “everything that’s amusing and worth doing is a sin, according to people like him.” He stabbed his chin at Masuf. “Everything that’s good for you on earth is bad for you in heaven, which is ridiculous—they can’t be that far apart.”

  Masuf said mildly, “Nothing is possible save by the will of God, Lord. Isn’t that so?”

  “Definitely,” Hasan said. “And if God didn’t will it, grapes wouldn’t ferment into wine. And God does not will the wasting of the earth, so clearly He meant it to be drunk.” He flung his arms out. “We are truly selfless. We drunks are the only altruists. For behold, Masuf, don’t we fill you with the warmth of satisfaction and the glow of righteousness?”

  “You fill me with pity and horror,” Masuf said, “—when I can keep up with your thinking.”

  “You pompous ass,” Frederick murmured.

  “Not toward you, Lord,” Masuf said hastily. “Toward Hasan, because he could yet be returned to the truth and light of submission to God.”

  “I could always be converted,” Frederick said. He began to feel injured; the warmth and confusion of being drunk flooded him.

  “Never,” Masuf said positively. “Lord, I mean no offense, but even in my short experience in your bodyguard I have come to the conclusion that the loudmouths in the churches of the north are absolutely right, and you are willfully incorrigible.” He grinned. “But I don’t hold that against you, Lord.”

  “I’m honored.”

  Hasan filled his and Frederick’s cups for the third time. “Consider, then, Masuf. I am the servant of the Lord Frederick, and what sort of servant would I be to make of myself a paragon of virtue and faith when he is in such a sad and irredeemable state of sin? God urges compassion on us all, Masuf.”

  “You shall be forgiven as you forgive others,” Frederick said. “Here we are, providing you with the most marvelous opportunity to store up treasure in heaven, and you keep trying to make us your rivals instead of your allies. God, Jesus; Hasan, think of what good we’re doing! I never thought of that, I never did.”

  Hasan laughed; his arms hung limp over his knees, and his voice was unsteady. Yusuf went quietly off into the darkness and came back with a guitarra, and sitting down, began to play softly.

  “I forgive you all every day at least sixty times,” Masuf said.

  “Thank you,” Hasan said, and shut his eyes. His shoulder touched Frederick’s knee. “I might even mean it—I’m not sure.”

  The complex, ringing chords of Yusuf’s song mingled with the rustle of the rain and the heavier splashes of the water running off the eaves. Frederick put his head back. “Is it stopping?”

  “No,” Ayub said. “It’s just getting harder, and it’s very steady.”

  “I think we’re going to have to get wet.”

  Hasan shook himself. “There’s a big cloak in the chest, Lord.”

  “Get it, then.”

  The Saracens drew themselves quietly to their feet and went off in different directions; Masuf carried the cups out and washed them, and Yusuf and Ayub put the wine back and straightened up the lean-to. Carrying the big cloak in his arms, Hasan came over to Frederick and stood waiting. Frederick lay still a moment, hating the idea of action. Opening one eye, he looked up and grinned at Hasan, who laughed. When he’d smothered a yawn, Frederick stood up and let Hasan drape the cloak over him; he fastened it with a clip the size of his hand. Ayub and Yusuf had already gone to get the horses.

  While Hasan teased Masuf and put out the lamps, Frederick drifted up to the front of the lean-to. Stooping a little, he could see past the eaves and the wall to the fringe of tall salt grass and cattails, bending in the wind, at the edge of Crane Bay. On the tiny strip of beach the surf beat into foam, and the silver rain hung down over everything. It was a miserable day. Ayub brought up Dragon, and Hasan went to hold him; wrapping the cloak around himself, Frederick stepped out into the rain.

  The Archbishop said, “Sire, the time is now.”

  “Al-Mu’azzam is dead.” He sat curled up on the cushions and let Corso and Marco scrub his skin with warmed towels until it tingled. “The whole situation is changed.”

  “Even so.” The Archbishop strode energetically around the room. “The Moslim world is riven and in trouble. Not for years have they been so amenable to conversation with Christians. If they ever mend their differences, or if, as seems more likely, al-Kamil defeats his nephew en-Nasr and his brother al-Ashraf, both—”

  “Al-Kamil is my friend. He says so.” Frederick struggled one arm out of the towels and tapped the pile of letters in front of him on the stool. “Sit, if you wish.” He flipped through the sheaf of paper, looking for the scratch sheets on the problem in algebra he’d sent al-Kamil’s mathematicians. They hadn’t solved it either. “Did you see Dawud?”

  The Archbishop smiled. “Fakhr-ad-Din.”

  “Yes.”

  “He asked me to give you his best and friendliest regards and once again thanks you for entertaining him so well when he was in Sicily.”

  Frederick smiled, his eyes on al-Kamil’s letter. “He entertained me.” Fakhr-ad-Din Dawud ibn es-Shaikh was an emir and a scholar and endlessly fun to talk to. Corso draped a towel around his head over his wet hair and left.

  “Al-Kamil was most . . . charming. And now he does hold Jerusalem,” the Archbishop said. “He dislikes war, although he’s a pretty good general.”

  “I’m not.” Frederick pulled a packet of folded vellum out of the mass of papers. “What’s this?”

  “A private letter.” The Archbishop sank down on a stool. “You’ll note that it’s in Arabic and the seals are unbroken.”

  Frederick reached for a knife. “Dear me, Berardo, if the seals are unbroken, how do you know it’s in Arabic?”

  “I asked.”

  “You looked. Pardon me a moment.”

  “Of course.”

  The Archbishop spoke some Arabic but read none. Frederick slit the seals and unfolded the heavy parchment. On the top, taking up one fourth the first page, was al-Kamil’s ideograph in gilt and red ink, and all down one margin ran a verse from the Qur’an.

  “In the name of Allah the Most Compassionate, the all-Merciful, the all-Just, the all-Conquering, the Lord Who is One, Who is All, to the Unbeliever Frederick al-Malik Hohenstaufen Sultan ibn Sultan—”

  That summed it up neatly enough. Reading through the rest of the superscription, he reached out and got a towel and dried his hair. Al-Kamil addressed him by all his titles except that of King of Jerusalem. Roumi S
ultan. Interesting; few Moslims quibbled over the legality of the Iron Crown, but al-Kamil more than most cared about detail and the subtle weight of phrasing. The next two blocks of writing covered the vital areas of his and al-Kamil’s health.

  “Coming to that which in friendship we have much discussed—”

  “Hunh!”

  “Sire?”

  “He must have pat phrases, like mine, but do they have to sound like a schoolboy’s?”

  “Of course not, Sire.” The Archbishop was a born diplomat.

  The letter went on, “Let us not pose as our forefathers, whose devotion led them in ways more stern and frightful than those avenues now by the benevolence of Allah open to us. The world changes, drawing near the Final Reckoning, and with it change the ways by which wise men meet their problems.”

  Oh, really? Pages came in with fresh clothes for him; Corso filled a brazier with coals and stirred them up. The Archbishop glanced at Frederick for permission, smiling, and sent a page after wine.

  “What is conquest but Allah’s curse on the insatiable, who must trudge from battlefield to battlefield, without respite, without even the glory of final victory, but only the infernal pangs of endless desire endlessly unfulfilled? To discipline what is our own is the highest earthly task.”

  Rhetoric. But it was conciliatory rhetoric. Gently the pages removed some of the towels that covered him and slipped him into clothes.

  “Jerusalem the Holy need be a bane to neither of us. Yet I refrain from positive overtures, fearing as I do the rash and narrow spirits among the Christians. Know that for the love I bear you, Sultan, I would indulge whatever suggestions you might extend on this issue, but that I mistrust those who, like wolves against the tender doe, would raven at such rational and proper measures as we might agree upon.”

  Give with one hand, take back with the other, and of course the implication that Frederick couldn’t control his own people would delight a Kurd. He smelled cooked meat and glanced up to see the pages offering the Archbishop a tray of tiny meat pies.