The Codex Lacrimae, Part 1: The Mariner's Daughter and Doomed Knight

Chapter 16: Three Mornings' Journey and A Hoplitarch Undone

i.  First Morning: The Return of the Norns

Later in the afternoon after the Battle of Caesarea, Clarinda and Alexander rode two of Evremar of Choques' stallions at a trot some distance behind Fatima, Khalil, and their retinue.

Clarinda looked around at the long caravan wending its way at a fast pace into the Al-Ansariyah Mountains and thought about the last few hours.

Once Fatima and Khalil had agreed to Clarinda's request to join the tribe for the march to the Krak des Chevaliers, much work had been necessary among both the camel-traders and sailors to implement their leaders' commands.

Now that the tribe was underway, the animals and traders had settled into the familiar routine of making an overland journey. The most striking and unsettling aspects of this subsequent trip were the sounds of wailing women and the funerary songs for the bedouin who had been killed in battle, the presence of the westerners―Clarinda and ten of her ship-mates (including Alexander and Genevieve)―and a destination that wasn't a trading city, but the army encampment of the great warrior, Saladin.

For the sailors of the Maritina and Calypso, the revelation of Angelo Trevisan's death had required a briefing by Clarinda and Pasquale. The speech she'd given had included a reorientation for everyone to the new chain-of-command that positioned Clarinda as il capitano, and Pasquale as mate primo. Clarinda touched the carpet-wrapped body of her father as she spoke about him, and the look she gave all the crewmembers as she finished had a ferocity to it that brooked no further debate.

She pulled the linen aba that Fatima had given her closer to her face, glad for the protection of it and the accompanying kaftan against the cool morning wind pelting the caravan with sand and pebbles as the tribe made its way northeastwards. She marveled at the camels' collective speed, sensing also that the animals wanted to stretch their legs after being cooped up at Caesarea.

Caesarea. She wondered if the choice to not watch her father buried at sea would come back to haunt her.

No, I said, 'Arrividerci,' to you in that galley, Padre. I'll not forget that moment quite yet, not in a way that a funeral makes things final. Pasquale assured me he'd cast you into the waters close to Jerusalem, as far away as possible from the God-forsaken crusader town of Caesarea. If I'm not there when the crew casts your body overboard, in the future, I'll be able to look to the sea and find you everywhere.

She shut her eyes, trying to will herself to rest by relaxing into the rhythm of the mount's trot beneath her.

"What's in those crates?" Alex asked.

Clarinda groaned. So much for sleep.

"Padre never told me, and you saw how successful force was in prying them open back there," she paused, "and now they've killed him. We'll leave them be for a while."

"Why not simply burn them?"

"They're made of a strange wood that seems impervious to harm."

"So, we're taking them to this Krak des Chevaliers because?" Alexander said in a leading tone, but the doubt in his voice reflected her own misgivings and she became irritated.

"Alex, can't you just trust me?" she snapped.

His reply was another injured expression. Damn his lovesick eyes! "Please. I'll tell you later, but I don't think you'd believe the true reason. Look, if you don't want to be here, there might still be time to ride back and catch the Calypso with Pasquale."

"Clare ... Clarinda. I do trust you. I'm not going to ride back to Caesarea. I just want you to talk to me."

This is it. I'll tell him now and be done with it.