Free The Codex Lacrimae by A.J. Carlisle Page B

regrew with each telling, adding mythical qualities to the essential fact that Santini had turned back Saladin’s army in one of the emir’s few defeats.
    But, as with any good legend, the saga had ended with Santini and Saladin battling each other in personal combat. The Christian hero then lost his head in a glorious sacrifice that selflessly guaranteed the safe flight of the pilgrims, villagers, and Hospitaller brethren. The body of Servius Aurelius Santini burned afterwards in a funeral pyre that lit the skies around the military shrine for days.
    And so on, and so on. God, she’d heard so many stories about the Battle of Mecina that the topic bored her! Her best friend, Pasquale, made the cleverest jibe one evening: he’d drunkenly asked a devout storyteller why he’d omitted from the Mecina story all the angelic choirs that must’ve been there singing as Santini was bodily raised into Heaven to take his seat somewhere between God, the Son, and Mother Mary.
    In her mind’s eye, Clarinda saw the young man of her vision leaping across the pool.
    She almost growled with frustration. The notion that her knight was that Santini simply was impossible. The man whom Urd called her Hospitaller was Clarinda’s own age, perhaps a year or two older, but five years ago at Mecina he would’ve been, what? thirteen? fourteen? Impossible to conceive that at such an age the young man had led the victorious Christian defense of Mecina.
    Unimaginable! How could Clarinda ever love someone like that? Someone to whom violence was second-nature? To whom religion was something not to inspire and inform a life, but to justify killing anyone who wasn’t of the same belief?
    She understood violence, and herself had learned to fight under Pasquale’s tutelage while on board the Maritina , but she’d never understand the religious fervor that set believers against unbelievers in wars that each side expected to yield some kind of approval from their respective God.
    There was no resolving the dilemma, so Clarinda turned her face upward to the fog-laden air and tried to refresh herself while walking.
    Logic and order. Primo, get our goods sold and underway. Secondo, find Padre in Caesarea. Terzo, deal with Servius Aurelius Santini if and when I ever meet him.
    They reached the beginning of the dockyards where they needed to meet Pasquale.
    â€œAlex,” Clarinda started to say, and then hesitated. She felt guilty and wanted to say something because she knew that if she let him come with her without explaining the Norn’s prophecy, she’d intentionally be sending Alexander a different signal than just friendship.
    Gain your ship with the help of the Stratioticus children, and take the warrior-born, Alexander, with you.
    Urd’s words thrummed in her ears as Alexander looked down at her, and the adoration in his eyes almost physically hurt her.
    â€œYes, Clarinda?”
    â€œ Niente …nothing,” she said.
    At some point, she’d have to explain to him what had happened with Urd, but he was even more practical minded than her. She knew that he’d find the idea that she was training to be a Norn and destined to fall in love with a dead Hospitaller war-hero completely unbelievable.
    â€œI may ask you later, but, for now, niente . Let’s go meet Pasquale. I want to get out of this city.”

Chapter 5

    A Market Day, Interrupted

    Back on the morning of Ibn-Khaldun’s arrival at the Krak — some four weeks in Clarinda’s future — the Muslim scholar’s tone was urgent.
    â€œI need to see Ríg immediately,” Ibn-Khaldun said to Pellion, his voice rising above the cacophonous sounds echoing toward them down the corridor.
    The entry tunnel lay behind the great gate of the Krak des Chevaliers, lit by torches set into wrought-iron sconces. Two grassy fields ran expansively along the near embankment, opening onto the water of the moat so that the